


A Friend of the Fade

by AParticularlyLargeBear



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Multi, Romance, Sign Language, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-14 09:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 46
Words: 67,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3405566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AParticularlyLargeBear/pseuds/AParticularlyLargeBear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt on the Dragon Age kink meme: The Inquisitor is not truly who they think they are, but a spirit inhabiting the body of the individual who originally passed through the Fade, being rendered comatose in the process. Now, with a head full of borrowed memories and all the problems to go along with it, they must navigate the challenges the Inquisition faces and, along the way, rediscover their own nature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_There must be a way out, there must be, must be…  
  
It heard. It listened. Calling for it. Closer than it ever remembered a waking thought.  
  
The summons wasn’t quite curiosity, it was… affinity. Belief drew it.  
  
But now the thoughts were quiet. The Fade-walker that had drawn it looked, but did not see, did not move.  
  
Could it help?  
  
It reached out and touched.  
  
Something tugged at the edges of its essence. It drew back, or tried to.  
  
It couldn’t. Within was a void, and the inexorable strength of it needing to be filled overwhelmed the presence.  
  
There was a moment of alarm, and then, like stepping from a cliff, it fell into darkness._  
  
Everything felt… heavy. Something pressed upon her body from all sides, and it took a long moment for her mind to supply the information that it was clothes.   
  
Bits and pieces filtered through the hazy mist that hung over her consciousness, but they came with no rhyme or direction or order. She was handy with blades. Her favourite colour was red. She’d never really liked horses. Those things that you opened to enter buildings were called doors. Sunrises were beautiful. None of it had proper meaning or sense, and none of it could take away from the pervasive sense of wrongness that she could feel. It permeated every aspect of her, from the top of her head to the tips of her… toes. They were called toes.   
  
She could see nothing. Ten seconds passed before she realised it was because she hadn’t opened her eyes. It took another five before she remembered how to do that.  
  
The first thing that struck her was how solid her surroundings looked, and a moment later, that came with the uneasy knowledge that she didn’t understand why that should be so strange. Walls, floors, ceilings, those existed, right? It shouldn’t feel so odd that they were there. Listening to such reason was immensely difficult when more than half of her was confused as to how she even knew that in the first place. Wasn’t it just, just, well, a fact? Except… no, she was convinced that at some time, in some place, the rules hadn’t been the same. Had they?  
  
That was ridiculous though. She was from… Ostwick. Yes, Ostwick. There was a vague sense of a city, people, home-but-not-home. No, wait, she came from – no, it was Ostwick, even though a part of her wanted to suggest that it wasn’t quite right. But no, now she remembered, she was Trevelyan.  
  
…What was Trevelyan?  
  
This was too much. She needed time to think, away from this heaviness, away from the confines of wherever this was. There was a moment where she tried to  _will_  it all away, and then further confusion, both in trying to work out why she’d done that and the fact that it hadn’t worked. That was silly though, you couldn’t just think something and have it happen. She wasn’t a mage, that wasn’t how … wasn’t it?  
  
She tried to lift her arms and then blinked. More weight. She looked down. There were some kind of manacles around her …wrists. Yes. Wrists. A blank stare as her achingly, desperately slow thoughts shifted through that. That meant imprisonment, captors. A keening sense of sadness swiped through her chest, and she could not fully explain why. It went deeper than knowing she was being held prisoner, and yet she couldn’t place a finger on it.   
  
 _Captivity. Cages. No way out. No chances left._  
  
Those thoughts swept across her in an instant and were gone just as quickly. What could have landed her in chains? She wasn’t a criminal. Granted, she wasn’t sure what a criminal was, but she definitely had the sense that criminals were the kind of people that got locked up, or at least, the kind that got locked up and actually deserved it.  
  
Had she perhaps done something wrong? Again, a queasy and sick feeling ran through her. She remembered that there had been something. Quiet where before there had been noise, trying to help, and instead, instead…  
  
Something else. She couldn’t remember.

She  _felt_  the person enter before even looking up from her bonds. Anger, anguish. A short haired woman, a hooded figure behind her.  
  
Accusations were snarled. Questions, demands. She wanted to answer, but couldn’t work out how to speak. She could recall talking. She spoke all the time, to everyone. Except knowing that and putting it into practice were apparently different things. It had something to do with the tongue, but also the lips, and then there was breathing, too. How did it all work?  
  
Silence was apparently taken for defiance, impudence, or both. The first woman grew even angrier before the second spoke, interceding, but not altruistically.   
  
We  _need_  her. Not wanted, not welcomed, needed.  
  
She understood need. She understood…  
  
 _Despair. Death. The only survivor. The only one that may be able to do something._  
  
“Stay silent if you wish. So long as you follow my instructions, I do not care if you speak.”  
  
She gave a slight nod to the woman. Cassandra. That was what the other had called her. Why didn’t the name describe her? Names should… tell you about… no, names were just names. Just like she was Trevelyan. Well, no, not exactly like it, because there were other parts too, she wasn’t just Trevelyan, but she couldn’t focus on them, couldn’t grasp the memories, still elusive, still difficult.  
  
Cassandra led her outside, wobbling unsteadily on her feet. Balancing was difficult, as if putting one foot in front of the other was somehow new, and somehow it was. Her body felt strange, like a familiar old coat that had been retailored to someone larger than herself, and now no longer fitted properly. She stopped and stared as she emerged into the open. A hole in the sky. A hole to- Cassandra was speaking, saying something about the world of demons, and Trevelyan felt a pang of something that may have been indignation, just another inexplicable thought and emotion to go with all the rest. It wasn’t  _just_  demons that resided in the Fade, yet when she tried to concentrate on how she knew that, she turned a blank. She’d heard something from the sisters, probably.   
  
She had sisters, didn’t she? But it wasn’t those sisters that she would hear something like that from. How could one word be two things at once? Relatives and priests. That scarcely made sense.  
  
The hole thrummed with energy, and a bolt of pain slammed into her hand. She cried out, the first sound she’d made since awaking. What- what was- that wasn’t right, that wasn’t how feelings worked. She grasped at her hand, a green mark pulsing, twisting, writhing, sending that agony all the way up her arm.  
  
There was concern from Cassandra, but something else too, a sense of emotion that was both concealed and yet plain as day.  
  
 _Crisis. Catastrophe. She is responsible. She is our only…_  
  
 _Hope._


	2. Chapter 2

Demons.

Trevelyan was torn between dread and the very real impression that they shouldn’t be any concern of hers. It didn’t make the slightest sense; she’d never encountered demons before in her life, but all the stories she’d heard had been bad, cautionary. Demons were malevolent, they sought to prey on good, Maker-fearing folk, they tried to attack and possess mages. She knew all of those things, and yet there was no conviction behind the knowledge, doubts that she could not speak to the origins of.

One thing she remembered was how to use daggers, and when the shade attacked her, she did not hesitate. A strange chill ran through her when the demon dissolved into shadows, and she was still staring at the spot where it had been when Cassandra snarled at her to drop her weapons. 

Trevelyan stared back blankly. Drop- relinquish them? But she had just been attacked! She wrestled with the words, trying to get them out. There was a knack to this. She’d always been able to speak, well, before, and it definitely hadn’t been hard. Why was it such a struggle now?

It didn’t matter; Cassandra changed her mind. Trevelyan felt relieved, though it took a moment to work out what that was, and why she was feeling it. Having weapons was reassuring and familiar; she’d learned how to use them since she was young, she was certain of that. What ‘young’ meant was rather more difficult to say.

The two of them fought their way across snow and ice to the scene of another battle between people and demons… the site of a rift. 

It was smaller than the huge rent in the sky, but closer. It hummed with the power of the Fade, and Trevelyan was struck by longing and… homesickness? No, that couldn’t be right; she was no mage, she knew nothing of the Fade. Regular sickness, more likely. There was little time for contemplation however, as she waded in alongside Cassandra to support the embattled defenders.

Magic in the air. Trevelyan could almost taste it, and as the last demon fell she was looking around for its source when that very individual seized her by the wrist and held her hand to the rift.

“Quickly, before more come through!”

Resolution. Respite. She can fix this. She can help us.

There was a –crack- and the rift blinked out of existence as if it had never been. The mage – an elf, gave Trevelyan a long look, assessing and scrutinising. Trevelyan looked back at him, frowning slightly. He was familiar and yet different; she had the strangest sense that they had met before and yet she was quite certain that they hadn’t.

“You were right, Solas,” said Cassandra, breaking the moment. “The mark can seal the rifts.”

“Let us hope that the same holds true for the Breach.”

Trevelyan glanced to her hand. The strange scar across its palm almost seemed to fizz with power. It was not a pleasant sensation.

“Our hero of the hour doesn’t talk much, does she?” the voice came from … lower? Trevelyan glanced down and found herself looking at a broad-chested dwarf, reloading a crossbow. “Are you sure she’s all right?”

The elf, Solas, tilted his head to the side and looked at her again. “She has undergone a traumatic experience and then awoke in chains,” disapproval emanated from those words, almost an accusation. “Give her a little time.”

“Fair enough,” the dwarf inclined his head to her, bowing slightly. “Varric Tethras, rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”

He winked at Cassandra. She ignored him. “Leliana has identified her as Violetta Trevelyan, eighth child of ten, accompanying the delegation from the chantry of Ostwick.”

Varric chuckled. “Ten kids? I guess even nobles get bored of other nobles sometimes. Or a lot, in this case.”

Violetta. That was right. But… wrong? It wasn’t what she liked being called, reminded her of stern voices and exasperation. Her mother, her tutors. They were the ones that called her Violetta. Others, her friends, siblings, the name was, it was…

“Vee.”

Everyone looked at her. Suddenly, she felt enormously self-conscious. She awkwardly pointed a thumb to herself.

“Vee.”

She meant to say something more along the lines of ‘I’m Vee’ or ‘I prefer Vee, actually’, but the rest of the words were less than forthcoming. Maker’s breath, the only reason she’d said it was that it was almost an instinct to correct people who insisted on the pomp of her full name. A reflex action, as opposed to something she’d consciously thought of. The others were still looking at her, as if expecting more information to follow. Vee shrugged helplessly.

“We should get moving,” Cassandra said, throwing a venomous look her way, as if to say ‘You finally spoke, and that’s all?’. “The forward camp is not far.”

She turned away, Varric followed, after a moment. Solas lingered last, and for a second seemed like he was about to say something. Instead he made a gesture towards the path ahead, smiled gently, and left. Vee trailed along after him.

There were so many pieces of the puzzle, but they were all slipping through her fingers. She needed an edge, or a solid foundation to work from, and could find neither. Each time she thought of something she knew, she was assailed with doubts and confusion, internal conflicts that shook her resolve and her certainty. Facts should not be so malleable, and it was only the statements made by others that had managed to crystallize. Her name. Her family. And yet even then, she couldn’t match faces to names. Davin, Reginald, Annette, Gerisa. But what did they look like? Which order did they come in? Flashes of memory went by, but they were shreds and scraps.

Vee clung to them as she followed the others. Right now, that was all that she had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's an in-game impression of our leading lady.  
> http://i.imgur.com/MileE1x.png


	3. Chapter 3

Closing the rift beneath the Breach and quieting the great rip in the sky was an ordeal. Just the proximity to the Breach made Vee feel sick to her stomach, and that was without even factoring the disconcerting surroundings of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, both familiar and utterly alien. Just to add the final cherry to the cake, there was another demon, a Pride demon, leering and laughing deep in the back of its throat. Distressing didn’t even come close to covering it, a fundamental sense of horror that went far beyond it just being a massive monster. Twisted, corrupted…

Regardless, they had done it. They’d survived. More specifically the mark on her hand had done it, and then she’d collapsed. Losing consciousness was a mercy.

The moment she awoke in an unfamiliar bed, she could feel it all around her. There were the noises of a chattering crowd outside, though that wasn’t all of it, there was something else… underlying and yet even louder, somehow.

_Hero. Herald. She saved us. She’s special._

Vee shook her head. She couldn’t hear words, exactly, it was more of a vague impression, whispers that touched her mind rather than her ears. Either way, it was unnerving.

She slid out of bed and outside, trying to ignore the looks of wonder that the people she walked by were giving her, trying to pretend that every part of the crowd wasn’t discussing her in some form or another. She heard ‘Herald of Andraste’ several times, a moniker which she couldn’t even begin to think about rationally. Vee knew who Andraste was. Sort of. She remembered hearing the name and stories attached to the name, which was nearly as good as knowledge. She wasn’t sure she liked the comparison. Andraste was important, very important. She was not.

Vee meandered her way through the town and up to the chantry. Raised voices came from a room within, ones she recognised. Cassandra, and that man who had pointed an accusatory finger in her face, back at the forward camp, read her silence as an admission of guilt. Roderick, the chantry clerk. She pushed open the door, and Roderick picked up exactly where he’d left off last time. More accusations, a demand to be returned to the chains.

Surprisingly, this time it was Cassandra that came to her defence. Vee raised an eyebrow as the Chancellor was shouted down.

“She’s scarcely said a word since awaking, Seeker! She’s afraid that she’ll condemn herself with lies!”

“I do not believe that, nor that she was responsible.”

Roderick’s expression was furious as Cassandra set a book down upon the table, growing into a mixture of that and appalled as the hooded woman from before, Leliana, explained it as being a writ from the Divine herself, a directive to restore something called the Inquisition.

That, however, was secondary to Vee; she was busy making an obscene gesture to Roderick as he stormed out. Her brother had shown it to her when she was seven, and when their mother caught her at it, had birched Vee until she cried. One more random thing her memory had filled in for her, though at least this one had the use of being able to antagonise someone unpleasant.

“You understand, even if you do not speak, Violetta,” Cassandra tugged Vee’s attention back. “We would… like your help in this matter. The Breach is stable, but it is not closed, and your mark has been the only means of closing rifts we have found.”

_Sincere. Shame. Why doesn’t she talk? Why is she silent?_

Vee held up a thumb and smiled. The expression was forced. She wanted to say yes, she wanted to say that she would do everything in her power to her help, but her tongue tripped over the words and they died upon her lips. It was the same strangeness that came with moving around, the unsettling sensation that there was too much of her to think about. Unlike walking, running, fighting, where she found herself clumsy but exuberant, with speech she simply found herself mute. It hurt.

Cassandra answered her gesture with a nod. “Thank you. Now, Leliana and I have many preparations to make. In the meantime, I believe Solas would like to speak with you.”

She knew a dismissal when she heard one. That was fine; it wasn’t as if Vee could bring much to the table right now anyway. She waved over her head and left.

Vee found Solas standing outside of one of Haven’s buildings, gazing pensively towards the Breach. Calmed now, but still looming overhead like a storm cloud. Just as she was wondering how to get his attention without tapping him on the shoulder, he glanced across to her.

“You are awake. Hopefully this encounter shall be rather less dramatic than those preceding it,” he smiled warmly, and Vee returned it before quirking an eyebrow and making a vague gesture to herself. She couldn’t keep a scowl from spreading. This was immensely frustrating.

“Yet to find your words, I see,” a thoughtful expression came across his face. “I had hoped to talk about your experiences, but I do not wish to trouble you further. I’m quite certain you have been interrogated enough recently.” Solas stroked his chin. “I have learned a great deal about languages both ancient and lost during my travels in the Fade. One that I recall consisted entirely of hand signals, flowing gestures forming words and descriptions. I do not know if it will be easier, precisely, but if you would like, I can teach you of this language. Certainly it’s a more fluent means of communication than nodding your head.”

Vee smiled again, a lopsided grin that quirked the corner of her mouth as she responded with another nod, just a touch of irony in the motion.

Solas chuckled. “Very well, let us begin. This is the sign for ‘hello’. Yes, good, well done…”


	4. Chapter 4

The next couple of weeks were a bustling hive of activity, not least as everyone tried to work out exactly what an Inquisition was and should represent. Vee spent most of it trying to stay out of the way; easier said than done when she was the renowned ‘Herald’. Every visitor wanted to see her, it seemed, and it was all Vee could do just to stay sane, let alone present herself as the kind of hero that everyone was expecting. They wanted a shining knight out of the storybooks, not a slender whip of a woman barely into her twenties. When they were disappointed, Vee knew every time, as if she herself was feeling the emotion.

A lot was being pinned on her, and though part of her hated the attention, another desperately wanted to avoid letting people down.

More knowledge trickled in steadily, often shaped by the guiding hand of Solas, who was willing to answer any question, no matter how inane, no matter how she faltered and groped for words that she had not yet learned how to sign. Vee could remember more of herself now, as if the longer everything around her was solid, the more solid she became, though perhaps that wasn’t quite right; more comfortable, perhaps. She recalled Ostwick and her family, of the arguments about her knifeplay and the ‘humiliation’ she had brought to them, reminders that she could always be sent away to some convent, like two of her elder sisters. She remembered going to the chantry to become affirmed and deciding out of petulance or defiance that she was going to stay there, neither Templar nor initiate.

Understanding did not come with the knowledge. Vee knew that she was faithful enough to seek that affirmation of her own volition, and yet now when she thought of Maker and Andraste, there was a strange sense of detachment. She knew the words and the prayers, but her feelings towards them were different now. She had looked to them as a symbol, a sign that things could one day improve, and many others treated the Maker in the same way. That made Him a positive thing, to her convictions. He brought belief and hope for the future… but also brutality, suffering at the hands who would wield His word as a weapon. For some the Maker, in his absence, was a source of little more than despair. It twisted Vee’s feelings, made them confusing and strange.

She preferred to concentrate on her lessons with Solas instead. He was patient; firm, but never harsh, a good teacher. He accompanied her often as she walked about Haven on some task or another, and though it was disenchanting to need him there as an interpreter when she knew the words, just could not speak them, he always relayed what she had said exactly as she had said it. Vee appreciated that. It made her feel a little more like she had a voice again. Spoken word remained elusive, a concept that at times she felt that she had grasped, only for it to slip away at the last instant. She still had not managed to say more than her name in almost half a month.

“Violetta? Can you come over here for a moment?” the voice called out from a tent as Vee passed, and she stopped. It had grown familiar over the past while. Leliana. Spymaster. Vee turned and ducked into the tent, glancing over at the reports covering the desks within. Already so many; how quickly the Inquisition was growing into a living and breathing creature.

Leliana turned, smiled, and then deftly signed _’I understand you have been learning this.’_

Vee’s eyes widened, and her gestures were faltering as she replied. _’You know how to sign?’_

_‘After a fashion. I have learned a number of signalling systems, and this one was similar to some of them. S o l a s helped fill in the blanks.’_

Vee smiled. _’He is helpful.'_ tilting her head to the side. _’Was there something you needed?’_

_’I had questions. Of the variety best asked in private.’_

Raising an eyebrow, Vee said nothing.

 _’You were with the chantry?’_ \- Vee thought that was chantry, anyway. The sign she made wasn’t unlike ‘temple’.

_’Yes. I was protecting the sisters.’_

_’But you are not a priest-knight.’_

Templar, Vee realised. She shook her head. _’Almost. I have three brothers in the order.’_

 _’I see. No Templar, but you can fight.’_ Leliana trailed off and then gave a slight nod. _’That was all. If you have the time, we were about to have a meeting about our next move.’_

Left perplexed, Vee nevertheless signed assent and followed Leliana out of the tent and towards the chantry. What exactly was the woman getting at? Vee knew that Leliana had been very close to the deceased Divine, but so far as she was aware, Vee’s role at the conclave had never really been in question. Well, apart from the period where they’d been convinced that she had blown the whole thing up, but that had been smoothed over. In so much as an enormous explosion tearing a hole in the veil could be considered smoothed. Vee had assumed that Leliana and company already knew about her and her family, considering they’d been aware of whom she was before she was even conscious again.

Waiting inside was Cassandra alongside a man and a woman that Vee had seen around Haven a few times already. The man was blonde, armoured, had the look of the soldier. The woman held a writing board and carried herself like the nobles Vee had spent so much of her childhood around.

Cassandra inclined her head. “Violetta, this is Commander Cullen, leader of the Inquisition’s forces, and Lady Josephine Montilyet, our ambassador and chief diplomat. Leliana you know.”

“My lady.”

 _’I have heard much. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.’_ the woman, Josephine signed. Vee’s surprise must have been obvious, because she spoke then, her accent richly Antivan. “My role as diplomat has given me cause to learn as many languages as possible. Though, I’m afraid I know only a little of yours, as of yet.”

_’I appreciate the effort. Thank you.’_

Josephine gave a courteous little dip of a curtsey. Cullen, Vee noticed, was closely watching her hands, as if trying to work out the meaning of the shapes that she had formed.

The meeting proceeded quickly from the introductions, and Vee was surprised that the group was willing to look to her input as much as anyone else, albeit filtered through Leliana. She felt grossly underqualified to be here, with little more than a mark on her hand and a head full of mangled memories that may as well have belonged to a different person for as much good they did for her here. Vee wasn’t an expert, she was just someone that had managed to be lucky enough not to die.  
The rest of the group came to the conclusion that if the Inquisition was to get any help from the chantry at all, they would need to seek out a woman called Mother Giselle, who had been aiding refugees in the Hinterlands. Vee expected that to be the end of it, but then found that Josephine was hesitantly glancing at her.

“There is one more matter for your attention, Lady Trevelyan. There have been some… unsavoury rumours about your continued silence. Some of our visitors are uneasy, and the last thing we need at the moment is to give anyone ammunition against us.”

 _’We feel you should accompany the party to find the Mother. It will be good for our reputation for you to be seen in action, especially if you can close rifts in the process,’_ Leliana signed.

Rifts. Solas had taught Vee that one. She cast her eyes down. More fighting… but others were relying on her, everyone in the Inquisition. Protecting others and more importantly, ensuring that their belief was not in vain; those were more important than her own scruples.

_’I understand. Let me prepare.’_

She didn’t need to be able to speak to help.


	5. Chapter 5

“You look tired, Squeaks. When’s the last time you slept?”  
  
Vee looked across the small camp to where Varric sat upon a log and gave a shrug. They’d been in the Hinterlands for two weeks now, assisting as best they could with Inquisition efforts to bring some semblance of stability to the region. It was slow going, with apostates and rogue templars seemingly waiting in ambush around every corner. Sometimes with bears. However, as difficult as it sometimes could be, it had to be done; without help, many of the refugees clustering around would die. The Inquisition may have formed in response to the Breach, but they were still supposed to be a force for order. The Hinterlands made it abundantly clear how badly they were needed. Varric had taken to calling her ‘Squeaks’ on the third day, apparently due to her being ‘as quiet as a mouse’. Cute.  
  
“You remind me of someone I know. She never took a moment to rest either. If you’re not careful, the wheels are going to come off.”  
  
Vee made a rapid series of signs. Solas, at the edge of the camp, gave a short snort of a laugh. Varric eyed him for a moment.  
  
“Care to share for those of us that don’t speak with our hands, Chuckles?”  
  
“She said that if she was aware that her mother was going to come on this trip, she would have brought earplugs.”  
  
Varric laughed and grinned. “Point taken, Squeaks. Just trying to look out for you,” his eyes dropped to her hands. “Remind me to give that a shot sometime. It doesn’t really seem fair for you to have to talk through other people.”  
  
 _’Thank you, V a r r i c.’_  
  
“Well, we can begin here; Vee just thanked you,” Solas supplied.  
  
“It would be much simpler to address the cause of her problems,” Cassandra, who had been to that point silent, chipped in. Vee still wasn’t sure what to the make of the Seeker. Very stern, though she no longer held Vee responsible for what had happened at the Conclave. Sometimes she wondered whether Cassandra viewed her as more of an idea – the Herald – than an actual person.  
  
“And did you have any ideas on that front, Cassandra?” Solas answered coldly.  
  
Cassandra looked surprised. “It was not my intention to- Violetta is capable of speaking, at least a little. There must be some way of allowing her to talk again.”  
  
“Should you take the time, you will discover that she is excellent company. It is merely a language you do not understand.”

Cassandra scowled, poking moodily at the campfire with a stick.  
  
Vee caught Solas’s eye.  _’It’s all right,’_  she signed.  _’She was trying to be helpful; I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it.’_  
  
 _’Very well. I simply do not wish to see your progress played down. You have made excellent strides in a short time.’_  
  
 _’I have a good teacher,’_  she winked, and Solas smiled back.  
  
It was strange to think that Solas was the first elf she had ever known on a more than passing basis. They had elf servants back in Ostwick, something which she’d barely thought about at the time, but now caused a vague sense of sickness in her stomach. For many of those that lived in alienages, the most that they could hope for, the pinnacle of what they could accomplish was a job as a servant. It just seemed so… sad.  
  
Solas was very different from any of those elves, and in truth anyone she’d met before, anyone around the Inquisition, too. Others were confused by her, did not understand how she acted; it went beyond just the speech. It hadn’t taken long for it to come out that her memory was a little fractured, not when she’d explained through Solas just how little she could remember about the circumstances surrounding not only the Conclave, but everything that came before. Violetta Trevelyan was like a person that Vee had heard about, or met before, as opposed to, well, her. Solas, on the other hand, didn’t seem to carry any of the same expectations, was content to treat her as a regular person instead of one that was somehow damaged.  
  
That was what hurt most of all about her inability to speak. Her muteness did not make her less than anyone else, nor did it make her simple, as some assumed had to follow. Being different did not mean  _worse_ , but that did not stop others from treating her strangely, rudely at worst.   
  
 _Frail. Firm. Nobody must know. Nobody must harm her._  
  
Vee frowned. The whispers had continued after leaving Haven, although less frequently than before. At times they almost sounded like actual people, but the rest of the time she could barely make sense of them. She hadn’t dared mention it even to Solas, for fear that ‘Sometimes I hear strange voices in my head’ would finally break his patience. It wasn’t as if they were harmful anyway, just odd, like snatches of incomplete thoughts, but not her own. From others? That was difficult to say; certainly sometimes the impressions felt like they may have belonged to someone nearby, but they were never distinct enough for Vee to be certain. Maybe it was part of the mark. It wasn’t like Vee understood that magic, who was to say it couldn’t or didn’t somehow draw those whispers to her? Perhaps they came from the other side of the veil.  
  
That was comforting and distressing at the same time. She shouldn’t be reassured by thinking of things coming across the veil from the Fade, and yet… Vee sighed, shook her head, and crawled over to her bedroll. Varric was right, she needed sleep. Maybe then her mind would stop wandering such strange paths.


	6. Chapter 6

Working with the Inquisition was more fulfilling than Vee would have given it credit for at first. She’d never wanted to join the templars, nor become a sister, nor go off and join the military – not that her parents would have allowed it. Being a part of a huge organisation, just a cog in a massive piece of clockwork; it didn’t strike her as something that she would enjoy. Her experience in the templars as a teenager had taught her that much. One of the few memories that was completely distinct was the feeling of fierce joy that had shot through her when Ostwick’s Knight-Commander had finally lost his temper and sent her away, throwing her out of the order. It had even been worth enduring her family’s disgust and anger with her upon her ignominious return. Wasn’t as if it was the first time she’d been a disappointment to them.  
  
Still, the Inquisition was a contrast. Nobody was giving her orders here, or treating her like a mindless drone. She was appreciated; her help was appreciated, and the Inquisition was becoming a beacon of hope for many people. Often, they were the only people who were bothering to lend aid to the common folk affected by the crisis. That meant a lot more than Vee could express, or in truth had expected it to. She’d never really been an extrinsically motivated person; self-reliance and independence, those were her watchwords.  _Had_  been her watchwords. Even the confused stares at her silence and movements of her hands were beginning to grow less frequent as the word spread that the Herald did not speak. Some were even taking that as a sign of her faith and dedication to Andraste; that she had taken a vow not to say a word until the Breach was closed. Leliana, Vee knew, had done nothing to discourage those rumours. Better those than the more sinister ones.  
  
Almost as enthusing as the good work they were doing was the fact that the Inquisition was growing. New recruits and contacts trickled in on a daily basis; the flood of support they’d received from the Hinterlands was both alarming and gratifying. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that people wanted to become a part of an organisation that had helped them out – returning the favour, so to speak. Along with the volunteers came others, companions trusted enough for Vee to bring along in her smaller excursions, to lead tasks of their own. Vivienne, the elegant mage who made Vee uncomfortable, reminding her so much of the atmosphere at home that she’d craved to escape. Blackwall, the Grey Warden, gruff and serious, but dedicated, deferring to orders without question. Sera, who had found the idea of Vee’s signing ‘Weird, but not bad weird. Good kind of weird, yeah?’. Then there was Iron Bull, warrior and spy, boisterous and full-hearted. Vee didn’t know what to make of him.  
  
Sometimes, though, Vee just needed a break from them all, from her responsibilities. She wasn’t used to anyone particularly caring about what she was doing, or bothering to track her down for any reason other than to scold her about some task she was perceived to be dodging. Which she inevitably was not, but that wouldn’t stop her mother telling her off for the sake of it. Now though, the Inquisition demanded her attention on a regular basis; part of being the Herald, she supposed. Strange that even though she did not lead their field operations – Cassandra was better at that, the others often deferred to her anyway. Not strange enough to mean that it wasn’t nice to have her opinion valued, however.

She sat facing the frozen lake outside of Haven’s gates, perched on a rock with her legs crossed. Behind her she could hear the clamour of the soldiers in training, the shouting and the clash of blade on blade. Silence had always unsettled her, even when she was young; it came with growing up alongside a veritable hoard of siblings, she supposed. Vee thought better when there was at least a little bustle going on, if only just in the background. That was a boost she needed, too, because she was attempting to write home.  
  
It felt a futile effort, to try and commit ink to parchment. Relearning her letters had taken some time, hours upon hours sitting in Josephine’s office and reading correspondence, trying to make sense of the lines upon the page as the other woman patiently walked her through it. Remembering how to write had been difficult, though thankfully less of a stubborn block than her verbal language, in spite of her clumsy penmanship. No, the difficulties were no longer in mechanics or comprehension, but in finding anything at all to say. Vee’s feelings about her family were mixed, possibly the most patchwork part of her memory. She cared for her siblings. Some of them. She cared for her parents, but it was tangled, mixed up in years of hostility and disagreements that her hazy recollections could barely make sense of. Her mother had wanted a specific path for her, Vee had wanted another. Her father had simply… wanted her out from underfoot. Married off. She’d disappointed both in her rebellion, and she regretted that they felt that way, but not that she’d done it in the first place.  
  
Very complicated, and Vee didn’t even know where to begin with the letter, wouldn’t even have thought to write if a short message from home hadn’t arrived a few days ago.  
  
 _’Violetta, we have heard a great many distressing things about the Conclave and what may have happened to you.  
  
Please let us know that you are safe and hale.  
  
Lady Harriet Trevelyan  
Ostwick.’_  
  
To just say that she was fine seemed cursory. Vee  _was_  fine, mostly. Better than she’d been in a long while, which was a lot of the problem. It was better because it wasn’t Ostwick. What was she supposed to write? ‘Oh I’m okay. Alive. Also they’re calling me the Herald of Andraste now and I forgot how talking works. Hope you’re not still angry about the templar thing.’  
  
Vee stared vehemently at the blank page, as if that would cause words to materialise on it.

“Herald, are you alright?” the voice was soft, so different from the commanding tone she was used to hearing that it took Vee a moment to realise that it belonged to Cullen.  
  
Vee swivelled and hesitated. Her hands had already begun forming the motions of signing, but she wasn’t sure if Cullen would understand. After a moment though, she realised; he was studying her closely at just below chest level. Where she was signing. She completed the movements.  
  
 _’I’ve been better. My mother wrote me.’_    
  
Cullen’s lips moved soundlessly. He was mouthing the words. “I see,” he glanced to the blank paper at Vee’s side. “The reply is not going so well, it seems.”  
  
She broke into a smile, in spite of the unhappy topic. He could understand. Now his long looks towards her in the meetings of the inner circle made so much more sense. He had been trying to work out what she was saying. How long must that have taken him to pick up?  
  
Her face fell again as she considered a response.  _’Our relationship is…’_  Vee hesitated before settling on  _’Strained.’_  
  
“Ah… you have my sympathies,” the commander ducked his head. “I did not mean to pry, I simply saw that you had been sitting out here for over an hour. I thought you may be cold.”  
  
 _’It’s fine. But thank you C u l l e n.’_  
  
A smile, tugging the scar above his lip. He suited smiling, Vee decided. “I … think that was my name. Was it my name?”  
  
Vee nodded, tilted her head to the side.  _‘Did you learn this by yourself?’_  
  
“Not all,” Cullen admitted. “I’m still thoroughly inept at making the signs for myself.”  
  
 _‘You understand at least. Most can’t,’_  Vee was still having to direct most of her communication through Solas and more recently Varric, who had taken no small delight in the realisation that he could now sign obscene jokes to her without anybody else realising, laughing to himself whenever he made her blush in front of other people.  
  
“You’re high on the chain of command. It’s important that I know what you’re saying, if we were to be in the midst of battle, relaying orders through a translator would be a luxury we could ill afford, any delay could possibly result in-” Cullen paused, cutting himself off, sheepish. “Forgive me. I came over to see if you were all right, and now it seems I’m lecturing you, instead.”  
  
Vee grinned.  _’I’m used to lectures. That was far from the worst I’ve had,’_  in truth, it was just nice that Cullen had gone to such an effort. He may have had his reasons, but there were plenty who would have had good reason to learn to comprehend her signing and hadn’t bothered.  
  
“Oh? It seems I’ve found the only person in Haven willing to listen to me talk,” Cullen glanced over his shoulder and then sighed. “Sadly, duty calls. Best of luck with your letter. Perhaps next time I’ll be able to speak to you in kind,” a salute.  
  
 _’I look forward to it,’_  she answered, and Cullen nodded, turning away with that cute half-smile on his face.  
  
A wisp of an impression drifted behind him.  
  
 _Comrade. Commander. Can I learn more about her? Can we become friends?_


	7. Chapter 7

_’S o l a s, can I ask you about the Fade?’_  
  
Vee could not read the look that Solas gave her in response to that. They were en route back to the Hinterlands and Redcliffe, preparing to make contact with the rebel mages. Marching was boring, especially when the people Vee could spend the time chatting with could be counted on one hand. However, there was a slight and uncharacteristic delay before Solas responded.  
  
 _‘Certainly. Was there anything in particular you would like to know?’_  
  
 _’You said once that you spoke to spirits often, but that they could be shaped by the expectations of others.’_  
  
Another pause.  _’Indeed, that is correct.’_  
  
 _’Does that mean the demons at the rifts are monsters because we go to the rifts expecting them to attack us?’_  
  
Vee had been chewing this one over for a while. No matter how many rifts she closed, she couldn’t shake the persistently nagging feeling at the back of her head that at some point, she’d never worried about demons; as if they were something that was just part of life, that she’d allowed to live and let live. Absolutely ridiculous, of course, and the exact opposite of what they’d told her in templar training, but the feeling just wouldn’t budge.  
  
Solas was shaking his head.  _’The process of crossing the veil through the rifts changes them, perhaps irrevocably. The shades and demons we see have been twisted by the madness of having to assume a form from nothing.’_  He hesitated, pausing for so long that Vee thought he was finished.  _’ Generally speaking, spirits would not cross over voluntarily. It is what makes them spirits; they have no interest in inhabiting our world or-‘_  a flicker passed across Solas’s face as he finished the next sign.  _’Possessing another entity.’_  
  
Vee looked away, struck by inexplicable guilt. For some reason, it felt as if she had hit upon a sensitive topic, even though Solas had not expressed as much. One boon of learning to sign was that she now paid much greater attention to body language, unspoken signals that often said as much or more than words.  
  
 _’I see. Thank you,’_  she responded after looking back.  
  
 _’I have a question of my own, if you do not mind._  
  
 _’Of course. Ask away,’_  Solas had asked enough of her that Vee was something of an open book to him now. Some of those questions had been on the behalf of others, but when he was the one translating her answers, she may as well have been telling him the information directly.  
  
 _’The Fade seems to hold a great deal of fascination for you, particularly for a non-mage. Did this come about as a result of the Breach and your experiences with the rifts?’_  
  
 _’I’m… not sure,’_  Vee frowned and shook her head. This was one of the areas where separating ‘before’ and ‘after became difficult. Hearing about magic with the templars had been interesting, but if she had spent any significant length of time contemplating demons and spirits, she could not recall.  _’I’ve learned a lot more about demons since receiving the mark.’_  
  
 _’Understandable. There are few better opportunities to learn about something than when it is trying to kill you on a regular basis._  
  
They shared a smile.  
  
 _Wariness. Watchfulness. Does she know her nature? Does she suspect?_  
  
Vee’s expression faltered. There was… something there, something that she couldn’t quite hear, something that she felt. She was struck with the sensation that that Solas was … thinking of her? It was difficult to place, like a shadow seen only in the corner of the eye.  
  
 _’S o l a s,’_  she signed his name slowly, hesitantly.  _’Sometimes I hear-‘_

“We will make camp in about an hour!” Cassandra called from the front of the group. “Until then, do not let up the pace!”  
  
Vee stopped her sentence, shook her head minutely. The moment had passed. Solas gave her a piercing look, but did not say anything.  
  
It was a few minutes before Vee realised that someone had fallen in step alongside her. For such a large person, Iron Bull could be very quiet when he wanted to. She raised an eyebrow at him.  
  
“Us Ben-Hassrath have to make sure that nothing slips our notice,” Vee tried to puzzle out what he meant by that, but then Bull’s tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, and his hands moved.  _’Didn’t expect I’d have to use this, though.’_  
  
The motions were a little clumsy, probably due to the sheer size of his hands and fingers, but understandable nonetheless.  _’You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?’_  she replied.  
  
Bull smirked. “It’s good to keep people on their toes. If they think you’re only good for hitting things, it lets you catch ‘em off guard. And I’m  _really_  good at hitting things.”  
  
 _’I noticed. One day we may discover how to reattach that man’s head.’_  
  
Bull looked sheepish. “Well, I didn’t actually know that we needed him alive…” Vee winked at him and Bull shook his head with a chuckle. “Man. You’re too good at keeping a straight face.”  
  
“Fortunately, those are powers she uses for mischief rather than malice,” Solas chipped in.  
  
 _’What can I say? I had a lot of practice.’_  
  
Bull grumbled good naturedly. “If you spoke out loud, I’d be able to read it from your tone. No offence, Vee.”  
  
Vee looked down. Bull didn’t mean to be cruel, but that didn’t stop his words from knotting in her stomach. She still felt that she was letting the others down every so often, especially when she was representing the Inquisition on official business. Those outside of the group looked to her – the Herald – as an authority figure and representative. If she’d been able to talk, then maybe the meeting with the clerics and Lord Seeker in Val Royeaux would have gone better, instead of her – and by extension the Inquisition - being dismissed out of hand.   
  
When her eyes went back up from her boots, Bull’s gaze was directly on her.  _’Sorry, V,_  he signed.  _’Spoke without thinking. There’s nothing wrong with how you talk, and anyone that says otherwise is gonna answer to me.’_  
  
“I’m afraid you’ll be rather busy, Bull. Few are so understanding of Vee’s condition,” said Solas.  
  
Bull made a ‘pff’ noise.  _’I’ll work through them one by one.’_  
  
Vee’s lips quirked up, just a little.  _’Thanks Bull,’_  saying it like made it feel like less of a name. She frowned and adjusted.  _’B u l l.’_  
  
Bull glanced past her to the elf walking on her opposite side. “I hear you taught her how to sign, Solas.”  
  
Solas inclined his head. “That is correct. Vee is a very quick learner.”  
  
“Huh,” Bull scratched his nose, scuffing his boots along the ground. Vee realised he was building up to something. “So uh… if it’s not crossing the line, what happened to you, Vee? When I heard the rumours I figured that a demon must’ve caught you in the throat or something, but …” he shrugged, making a vague gesture at neck level. “No scars.”  
  
 _’I… forgot how to talk,’_  trying to explain was almost as bad as experiencing it in the first place. Her mouth wouldn’t do what she told it to do, wouldn’t form the shapes of words, and actively focusing on that fact caused an ache to form in her chest. It made her feel broken.  
  
“Vee fell from a rift at the temple of Sacred Ashes,” Solas added. “To pass physically through the Fade is unheard of. That her voice is the only lasting impediment she has suffered is quite remarkable,” there was defensiveness in Solas’s tone, as if daring Bull to take issue.  
  
Bull, however, was nodding approvingly. “You got knocked down but then you stood back up. I respect that. Some folks hit a roadblock and just give up,” he paused, and then flashed her a big toothy grin. “Hey, let me know if you wanna learn some  _Qunlat_  signs,  _really_  mess with people’s heads.”  
  
 _’Remind me at camp,’_  Vee signed back.  _‘If that’s all right, S o-‘_  
  
He was gone.  
  
 _Curious. Candid. Have I changed her? Have her experiences altered her being?_


	8. Chapter 8

Contacting the rebel mages was not supposed to turn into a negotiation with a Tevinter Magister. It  _really_  was not supposed to turn into fighting demons in a chantry.  
  
Vee vaulted across Bull’s back, driving her dagger deep into the face of a shade. It let out a disconsolate shriek that chilled her to the bone. It was filled with despair and dread as it died; one of the reasons fighting such creatures was so distressing. According to Solas, she was especially sensitive to the sensations that emanated from demons,  
  
Lucky her.  
  
“Nice hit, boss!” Bull called, stepping up to her side and bringing his waraxe across in a brutal swing that slammed a second demon so hard into a pillar that the finish cracked. Vee rapped her blades together in acknowledgement. Signing wasn’t exactly practical in the heat of combat.  
  
“On your flank!” Cassandra barked. Vee and Bull moved in unison, weapons snapping out to intercept the rage demon approaching from their side. Vee went low, Bull went high, the demon went out like a light.  
  
“The demons have abated, I suggest we seal the rift!” Solas announced, both hands glowing with bright blue protective energy, the spiritual barriers that Vee found oddly soothing, even when being attacked.  
  
Vee nodded and raised her hand to the rift hanging ominously in front of Andraste’s very image. With a deep –thoom-, the mark thrumming with its strange power, the rift closed.  
  
“Fascinating!” Vee’s eyes dropped from the space where the rift had been to the moustached man her group had encountered in the chantry, the man who had been fighting the demons before they arrived. “Would you mind telling me how that works, exactly?”  
  
Vee lowered her weapons, brow creased. The first impression of this man was… peculiar, perhaps because it was mixed up with the demons that had been around. That having been said, introductions had been odd ever since the Breach, as if her gut instincts were kicked up into overdrive. It wasn’t always useful.  
  
“Wait, hold on. You’re her. The Herald, she who does not speak. Quite odd when conversing is only the second strangest thing you do with your hands, wouldn’t you say?” he hadn’t stopped talking. Vee sheathed her daggers.  
  
 _’Who are you?’_  
  
He frowned. “I’m afraid that your particular means of conversation does not lie amongst my many talents.”  
  
“She asks who you are,” Solas interjected. “A question I imagine is not far from any of our thoughts.”  
  
“Ah. Well. Dorian Pavus, at your service. I see you must have received my message. At any rate, I’m sure Felix will be along shortly, so let me fill you in on what Alexius is up to.”  
  
The more Dorian spoke, the less happy Vee got. Magister Alexius hadn’t struck her as a pleasant person to begin with, especially not with his condescending attitude towards her signing, but Dorian’s revelations… Part of a Tevinter cult? Wielding magic that didn’t just mess around with the fabric of the veil, but time itself? Vee had already been suspicious about Alexius’s timing, trying to work out how he could possibly have pounced on the mages so soon after the Conclave, but this was beyond anything she could have theorised.  
  
Maybe it was just the templar training talking, but why was it every time magic came into something; it just seemed to make the entire situation worse?  
  
“You seem a rather interesting group of people. Do be so kind as to contact me when you come to take down Alexius, would you? I’d hate to miss it.”  
  
And with that, Dorian was gone, giving Vee a tremendous amount to think about, precious little of it good. Venatori, time magic, and some kind of figure behind it all… First and foremost, she needed to get out of Redcliffe. The mages were suffused with an overwhelming sense of sadness and anxiety; it was difficult to explain and she hadn’t actually tried, but it was as if a dark cloud was hovering over the mages, a lingering miasma. It reminded her of the Crossroads back before they had begun to help everyone out, but even stronger, even more intense. Truly these people hadn’t felt that they had anywhere left to turn.  
  
 _Abandoned. Aimless. We have no choice. We have to take this risk._  
  
Somehow she had to find a way to help them. Nobody deserved hopelessness.


	9. Chapter 9

Templars or mages. Mages or templars. One way or another, there was a big decision to be made.  
  
The debate over which group to approach for help had gone on for over an hour, and at last Vee had signed that she needed a break – that all of them needed a break, in fact. Josephine, Leliana, Cullen, Cassandra… every one of them could get quite heated in the moment, and Vee was only a little better, especially when having to sign out her points when everyone else was raising their voice. It was easy to get overlooked and ignored, and she didn’t have a great many ways of attracting attention which didn’t make her feel like a petulant child.  
  
“Excuse me, is this spot taken?”  
  
Vee was sitting on her customary rocky perch outside of Haven. She cocked that crooked grin of hers at Cullen’s joke, glancing at him over her shoulder and then shuffling around in place to make sure he could see her hands.  _’Careful commander. You may lose face if the troops discover you have a sense of humour.’_  
  
Cullen studied the gestures closely and then returned the smile. “My dignity is made of stern stuff, I’m sure it can withstand such an onslaught,” Cullen leaned on the rock where it was steeper, closing the distance a little. “I meant to check on you. Our meetings can grow…”  
  
 _’Loud,’_  Vee signed.  
  
Cullen let out a laugh. “Yes, let’s go with that,” he agreed. “At times I am reminded we aren’t always very accommodating, which does a disservice to your importance to the Inquisition. And to you personally, as it happens.”  
  
Vee gave Cullen a sidelong look, masking surprise from her face. In spite of their previous conversations, she hadn’t been sure whether the commander was in the same camp as Cassandra and Leliana, to a lesser extent Josephine; that of viewing her in terms of her role in the Inquisition long before in terms of Violetta Trevelyan the person. Cullen usually seemed to treat her as an officer, a peer in rank rather than a friend… though sometimes she got the sense that perhaps if protocol wasn’t such a barrier for him, then that wouldn’t be in the case.  
  
 _’I make do,’_  she signed at length.  
  
“Admirably, in fact; but that’s difficult enough with outside parties without your own comrades adding to your burdens,” Cullen looked down to his hands, concentration etched into his features. It was slow, painstaking, and some of the gestures weren’t quite right, but steadily, he signed to her.  _’I wanted to apologise, and let you know that should you need anything, I’m here.’_  
  
 _’That’s lovely C u l l e n,’_  she waited for him to look up from her hands, wanting to make eye contact, show her sincerity as best she could. _‘I really do appreciate it.’_  
  
The commander’s expression turned bashful. “I uh- well. You’re welcome. It’s the least I can do.”  
  
 _Success! Shame, slightly. She is a bright woman. She is beautiful when she smiles._

Vee swallowed, warmth rushing to her cheeks. She was used to feeling vague impressions from others by now – positive ones, often, thanks to the Inquisition helping out so many that were so disadvantaged. They were odd, yes, but she had steadily learned not to worry about it; they were never malevolent, indeed often Vee wasn’t sure if it was just pure intuition and mood-reading. Normally they remained those strange whispers, just beneath the surface, the occasional snatch of something that was an actual word, more than just a feeling. Rarely were they distinct, rarely did she hear, as if murmured into her very thoughts, that someone considered her beautiful.  
  
Embarrassment over the content was chased with alarm at the concept. Did she just… read Cullen’s mind? There wasn’t any other way of describing it, nor anywhere else that the thought could have come from. Vee wasn’t narcissistic enough to decide she was attractive at random, especially not in the face of a touching sentiment from someone she hadn’t expected would express emotion in that way. More than that, it had sounded like Cullen, his voice without being his voice, as if he’d murmured something to her in a dark room, muffled behind a wall.  
  
Cullen noticed, because of course he would. “Are you all right?”  
  
 _’I need to go,’_  she signed quickly, so quickly that she could see his eyes flickering as he tried to follow the gestures. Vee was up on her feet and all-but fleeing back into town before Cullen could so much as muster a response.  
  
“O-oh I’ll see you when we reconvene!” he managed to her retreating back, and again Vee felt a whisper across her mind, a wave of emotion that was first alarm and then upset, hurt. Dashed hopes.  
  
 _Foolish. Flight. I said something wrong. I upset her._  
  
It was Cullen. It  _had_  to be Cullen, and she felt a pang like the twisting of a knife in her gut, alongside overwhelming confusion.  
  
Solas. She needed Solas. Now.  
  
Stumbling through Haven, she found him in the usual place, though her eyes skittered over him the first time, failing to focus and struck with a momentary panic before realising that he was there all along. Her distress must have been plain to see, because the moment Solas caught sight of her, both eyebrows shot up and he crossed the remaining distance himself, placing both hands on her shoulders, steadying her.  
  
 _’Calm now. Calm,’_  he signed, once he had her attention again.  _’What is wrong?’_  
  
 _’I heard C u l l e n speak. In my head. I heard his thoughts,’_  her signs came in short little bursts. Her hands were shaking, and that distorted her movements, made her have to concentrate just to keep herself from stumbling over her words.  
  
Solas paled. He too had an excellent poker face, but even he couldn’t keep the disquiet from showing. It was the first time Vee had seen him so perturbed, and that would have been enough to unsettle her alone.  _’Can you elaborate? What precisely did you hear?’_

_’He said something kind to me. Then there was a whisper. Just a tiny little sound. More in my head than in my ear. Compliments. He was happy. That I took what he said well, I think._  
  
Solas’s hand went across his mouth, cupping his chin for a moment.  _’That is…’_  he paused.  _’Alarming,’_  he looked to his left, then his right. Nobody was nearby, but his sudden furtiveness made a finger of anxiety creep down Vee’s spine.  _’V e e. It is of the utmost importance that you speak of this to no one. Not of hearing him, and not of what I am about to tell you. Do you understand?’_  
  
The trembling was so bad now that she did not even trust herself to sign. Instead she nodded.  
  
 _’Your experience with the mark changed who and what you are. You are V e e, but you are something more. It is what caused you to have such difficulty steering yourself, it is what caused the fractures in your memory, and I do not doubt that it is at the roots of the impediment in your speech.’_  
  
 _’The mark affected my mind?’_  Vee looked down at the scar across her palm as she finished signing. Just when she’d nearly come to terms with it.  
  
 _’No. I am referring to your time in the Fade. It is-’_  Solas bunched his hands for a few seconds, breaking eye contact before finally resuming.  _’Not unlikely that you gained a passenger while passing through.’_  
  
Vee’s heart dropped through her stomach. That was worse than anything her imagination could have conjured; encountering a demon, having some kind of ticking clock counting down towards it taking control of her…  _’I’m… possessed?’_  she managed, after a long moment.  
  
Shock passed across Solas’s face.  _’No!’_  he signed with an aggressive motion.  _’Remember, there are benign spirits beyond the veil; not all are demons seeking to prey on the vulnerable and unwary. My theory is that you encountered such a spirit, and that it assisted your escape from the Fade. However, in the process, it’s possible that it-‘_  Solas looked away, biting his lip.  _’Left something of itself in you. Few spirits can properly conceive the physical form, and it may well have expended itself to aid you; exhausted its energies to the extent that what little was left bonded itself to your body.’_    
  
Vee couldn’t take all of this. She sat down. Hard. Mixed in with roiling disbelief, anxiety and a measure of amazement was a very small and subtle feeling that she could not properly place. It was one part doubt, one part gut instinct. One part confusion and one part guilt, for to follow this feeling was to distrust her friend. What Solas said made a strange amount of sense, a portion of her mind seeming to accept it, as if he was simply reminding her of something that she had forgotten. And yet again that feeling chewed at her, saying that… no, that wasn’t quite right, no… there was… perhaps something that Solas was withholding about this revelation.   
  
 _’So I ran into a spirit and now I can read minds.’_

_’That is a simplification, but I do not think it is entirely inaccurate. Perhaps it would be more apt to call the ability one of very intense empathy.’_  
  
Vee’s eyes dropped. This was completely insane. That the events at the Conclave had deeply affected her was never a matter for debate; everything had been a strange fog for weeks after she emerged from that rift, and while she had since reassembled her mental state, there were still gaps here and there. But a spirit in the back of her mind – that in some ways was even worse than being scarred by a mystical mark. Actually, no, in  _most_  ways it was worse. Nobody would demand her burned as an abomination for having the only method of closing rifts scorched onto her palm.  
  
What she hated most was that the information Solas was telling her provided a huge piece to the fractured puzzle that was her memory. It explained the intuition, the ability to just know when the Inquisition had done good work, the impressions she got of the moods of others. Naïve of her to chalk that up to her own astuteness, though maybe she shouldn’t be too harsh on herself; Vee had been very good at lying when she was younger, and that had required reading people.  
  
But she should have known. She should have realised that it was different now… only Vee hadn’t had the complete memories to properly compare ‘now’ and ‘then’.  
  
When she made eye contact again, she realised that Solas was studying her closely, as if watching for any signs of an impending meltdown. Her hands were shaking less, but how in Andraste’s name was she going to get back to the meeting after being rattled to her core?  
  
 _’So what do I do now?’_  Vee signed tentatively.  
  
 _’You do nothing. You are under no obligation to reveal this information to anyone. To me it seems that you have done a more than adequate job of being the Herald with your spiritual companion. Practically speaking, the only likely result of this becoming common knowledge would be to undermine the Inquisition.’_  
  
Vee gave a slight and sad smile. They had invented the sign for ‘Inquisition’ between themselves. How long ago that seemed now.  
  
Solas continued.  _’Few of our companions would take the news well, and doubts are something that we can ill afford,’_  He leaned down to her, took her hand, and squeezed it. He held on for nearly a minute before letting go to speak.  _’You are you, V e e; an intelligent, courageous and kindly young woman. It would be a great shame if you allowed this news to affect your convictions.’_  
  
 _’I need some time to think about this,’_  Vee signed at length. Intuition was telling her Solas was right. Intuition was giving her an ethereal sense of anxiety from Solas; it wasn’t that she thought he was lying, just that…  
  
She couldn’t place a finger on it, and this topic was not one that she wanted to scratch and scrape up. Vee wished that she could forget it entirely. If the  _Tale of the Champion_ , Varric’s own book, was to be believed, a spirit joined with a person had caused the mage/templar war. That sounded little different from the way Solas had described her. Could she bring about such destruction?  
  
The very thought made her sick with dread.


	10. Chapter 10

The last thing Vee remembered about the confrontation in Redcliffe’s great hall was the overwhelming pulse of magical energy as Alexius’s spell clashed with Dorian’s.  
  
When she opened her eyes again, she had her back against a wall and the anxious face of the Tevinter mage hovering over her. Vee gritted her teeth with pain as sensation and consciousness returned; she must have hit the floor pretty damn hard when she landed. That explosion must have hurled her in the air-  
  
This wasn’t the great hall.  
  
Dorian breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank Andraste for that! For a second I thought I was going to have to sort this out by myself.”  
  
Grimacing, Vee picked herself up, trying to gain her bearings. It looked like they’d wound up in some kind of cell, the others nowhere to be seen. No Alexius either. The door was open, which was a mercy, but as she straightened up, it hit her.  
  
Despair. Overwhelming despair.  
  
The sensation slammed into her with almost physical force, driving like blades into the centre of her skull, the crushing, all-encompassing feeling of utter desolation and dread. Vee’s form was wracked with a pain that seemed to go deeper than her body, to some core of her that she couldn’t properly conceive or describe. It was all around her; as if the very walls were screaming with misery. She fell to a knee, mouth opening with a soundless cry of agony.  
  
“Hey! Come now, what did I just say?” Dorian ducked down, looping Vee’s arm around his shoulder and supporting her back to her feet. “Rather an inopportune moment to go collapsing onto the floor, don’t you think?”  
  
Vee looked blearily at him. There seemed to be concern on his face, but Maker it  _hurt_  to even think. This was far, far worse than any feeling she’d picked up before, and beneath it all, an endless susurrus of whispers, too many of them to make out anything more than the faintest impression of words. Dorian’s mouth was moving, and it took a long and painful second of concentration for her to tune out the background noise enough to listen to what he was saying.  
  
“Violetta. It’s Violetta, yes? You’re obviously in pain, but I’m afraid there’s little I can do about that at the moment, so I need you to concentrate on what I’m saying. Alexius’s spell has sent us through time; doubtless he meant to completely erase us from history, which, thankfully for our continued existence, I was able to counter. However, if we’re to get back, then we need to find the amulet that he used for his magic. Please, let me know that you’re getting all of this.”  
  
Teeth gritted, Vee nodded. Of all the people to be stranded alongside, her head clenched in an excruciating vice, naturally it was both the person she both barely knew  _and_ couldn’t communicate with. Trying to find Alexius and his amulet was one thing, but what about the others? Dorian wouldn’t be able to read her signs, and right now she could barely stand, let alone attempt to mime out concern for their companions.  
  
The mage supported her out of the cell, Vee doing her best to distract herself from the hammering in her temples by focusing on the surroundings. Dank and dismal, though even with the architecture damaged, it seemed to be Fereldan in origin, if she knew her heraldry. Well… it was her best guess anyway, she hadn’t paid much attention to those lessons at the time, and that was before her memory was shattered into little pieces. More disconcerting that the state of disrepair was…  
  
“Red lyrium,” Dorian remarked grimly, edging around a pillar of the thrumming, corrupted substance that almost seemed to be growing from the wall. “I can’t say I think much of the interior design here; what’s wrong with some good old fashioned skulls to express your megalomania?”  
  
Anxiety was pouring off him in waves, palpable even above the pulsing and pounding ache. He was spooked, even if he wasn’t letting it show. Vee tried to concentrate on keeping an eye out and just putting one foot in front of the other. This was worse than the refugee camps, worse than the mages in the town, it was as if she was  _breathing_ hopelessness. 

They pressed on, Dorian all but dragging Vee up staircases, back down again. Soon enough it became clear that moved through time or not, this was still Redcliffe castle… albeit the Redcliffe out of a messed up nightmare. Periodically, Dorian was forced to lean Vee against a wall or an archway to fight off patrolling guards, Venatori men. She assisted as best as she was able to, but it was all that she could do to not fall flat on her face, let alone wield both her weapons properly in a fight.  
  
“You certainly pick the most interesting times to develop migraines,” Dorian snapped after one such skirmish, mopping at his brow with a handkerchief he had produced from somewhere, three Venatori smouldering in ashes on the floor. Vee just glared at him in response, edging her way along the wall, towards what appeared to be another block of cells. “Look, all I’m saying is that I could very much use a hand with all of this; in spite of how dashing I must seem fighting off these Venatori alone, I’m not a one man army. Violetta? Violetta are you listening?”  
  
Vee was trembling as she leaned on the wall. She could feel a keening sense of pure sorrow from nearby. It sounded, felt, tasted, smelled familiar. Hauntingly familiar. A faltering step forward, then another, towards the cell.  
  
_Declining. Dying. Won’t be long now. Won’t be able to hold on._  
  
“…Holy shit…” the voice was tinged, distorted, painstaking. “Squeaks? You’re… you’re alive?”  
  
It was Varric, red lines criss-crossing his face, a disturbing miasma hanging around his head, pulsing with the same unsettling beat of the red lyrium protruding from the walls.  
  
Vee’s eyes were swimming.  
  
_’V a r r i c – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I let you down. I screwed it up.’_  
  
Varric looked down at his hands, staring as if in wonder, as if he had not done this for a very long time. The gestures were unsteady, unpractised, but there.  _’You came back, S q u e a k s. You came back.’_  his lips turned upward in a melancholy smile. “Make sure you pinch me first though. I think I might be dreaming.”  
  
Vee pulled the cell door open and all but fell into Varric, hugging him fiercely. He didn’t return it, and after a moment, actually pushed her away. Full of hurt and rejection, she stared at him as he slowly shook his head.  
  
“I’m full up of red lyrium, Squeaks. You don’t want to touch me right now.”  
  
Dorian, standing behind her, laid a hand on Vee’s shoulder as she knelt in front of the infected dwarf. “Violetta,” he said gently. “If we can find Alexius and his amulet, we can return to our own time; ensure that none of this ever happens.”  
  
“I’m definitely in favour of that,” Varric answered, dusting off his coat and stepping from the cell. “Come on, if you’re in the liberating mood, the Seeker is in the next cell block over.”  
  
_Alive. Amazement. Could this be undone? Could we go back and win?_  
  
A thin tendril of something entirely unlike the drowning, agonising despair of this place crept into Vee’s awareness. Belief.  _Hope_. Varric’s. It was like a bolt of pure clarity, pushing back the pain hemming in her mind, making it difficult to think or act. Vee let out a slow, shuddering breath, tears still in her eyes, her skull still rhythmically pounding, but just a little more bearable, just a little easier to block out, that slender beam of faith just enough to bolster her. She clung to it like a lifeline, and perhaps it was nothing less.  
  
In steps a little firmer, a little more balanced, Vee led them both from the room. She had something now, something to drive her onward, keep her moving, let her battle through the pain.  
  
They couldn’t allow this future to come to pass.

-

The second Dorian’s spell finished with a blinding white flash, Vee looked around wildly.  
  
Redcliffe’s great hall again. And there was Varric, there was Cassandra, Felix, even Alexius. They were alive. They were all alive. Thank the Maker but they were  _alive_.  
  
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Dorian announced with a cocky smile, entirely unbefitting of what they’d just experienced. Alexius dropped to his knees, done, broken. Anguish rolled off of him, making Vee wince in sympathy, but it was eclipsed by her own overwhelming relief.  
  
Varric just about had time to open his mouth before Vee slammed into him with a hug so fierce that it nearly knocked him over. There was only a second’s surprised delay before Varric returned the gesture and hugged her back.  
  
Vee started to tremble. She’d seen him die. She’d seen  _all_  of them die, even Leliana, chained and tortured. Her arms clung to him like he’d disappear if she let go.  
  
“Violetta?” Vee could recognise Cassandra’s voice, even if she couldn’t see her with her face buried in Varric’s shoulder. “What troubles you?”   
  
Vee didn’t even move to respond. She’d always thought Cassandra to be strict and cold, much more concerned about the religious implications of Vee’s experiences than how she was feeling, taking the lead in battle without question.  
  
But back in that place, Cassandra had laid down her life without question, and more than that, her faith, her hope… they were even stronger than Varric’s. They’d imbued Vee with the strength to fight, to strike down Venatori, to defeat Alexius in order to come back home. Cassandra was distant, and yet from afar, she  _believed_  in the Inquisition, and she believed in Vee.  
  
Reluctantly, Vee relinquished her hold of Varric so she could speak.  
  
_’I don’t want to talk about it,_ ’ she signed.  
  
Varric looked closely at her. “I’m going to throw out a wild and speculative guess that there’s a little more to this story than the two of them disappearing then reappearing a couple of seconds later, Seeker.”  
  
Cassandra stepped forward, crouching down, both hands going onto Vee’s shoulders. “Whatever you have experienced, it is over now. We have won here. You will be okay.”  
  
The sincerity in her voice was overwhelming. Vee burst into tears, sobs of relief causing her shoulders to heave.  
  
“O-oh, um, I don’t, ah…” Cassandra patted her on the back, looking desperately towards Varric. “Y-yes, I’m sure you’ll, that is, uh… in time…”  
  
Varric’s chuckle was simultaneously quite unsuited to the severity of the goings-on; taking Alexius into custody, addressing Fiona, the mages’ leader… and one of the best sounds Vee had ever heard.


	11. Chapter 11

Returning to Haven was a relief. It was home now, perhaps more home than Ostwick had ever been. Dorian had filled the others in on their experiences in that dark future, and Vee was grateful for that. She didn’t want to think about it, the despair, the sickness, the pain that it caused to the centre of her being, just to be there. After hearing about it, Varric had come to sit by her in one of the Inquisition wagons, silently holding her by the hand for several hours. She could no longer feel him as she had when he was the only beacon of hope in all of that desolation. However, the faint impressions she’d had of him before were now stronger, as if using him as a pillar of support had sharpened that strange ‘sense’ that she did not understand.   
  
More than ever, Vee was realising that Solas was right about this… companion she supposedly had inhabiting her form. Dorian had been spooked about the strange and horrible events they’d witnessed, but he’d at least been functional. If anything, the terrifying amount of red lyrium around the place would have been much more liable to affect him, as a magic user, than her, who had gone through templar training (albeit unfinished). No, she’d felt every part of the agonised dread of that future, she’d picked up thoughts, and taken strength from them, too. There was a spirit living inside of her, and that was something she could no longer kid herself about even remotely. Maker willing, it would remain helpful and benign, did not decide that it wanted a greater piece of her than residence in the back of her head.  
  
There would be fallout for her decisions in Redcliffe, that much was inarguable. Vee had overridden any dissent over the treatment of the mages and offered them a place in the Inquisition as partners, Varric translating for her. She hadn’t freed them from their bondage to Tevinter just to conscript them a second time; she refused to sever their hopes in that way. Thedas would look upon them differently for this, and moreover, there were many voices amongst the Inquisition itself that would ask questions. Vee had seen Cassandra’s look of disappointment when Varric had announced the verdict; in some ways, Vee was surprised that it was her choice that had been deferred to. If anyone was the Inquisition’s leader… well, it certainly wasn’t Vee.  
  
As the mages slowly filtered into Haven, Vee slipped off the wagon to take up a position nearby the front gate, just to keep an eye on things. A few moments later, Iron Bull’s long legged stride took him alongside her.  
  
“Thought I’d check up on you, Vee. That was some messed up shit you went through.”  
  
Vee managed a smile. There were dark circles underneath her eyes; she hadn’t slept properly the entire journey back, had barely even had the energy to muster a conversation.  
  
 _’I’ve been better,’_  she admitted.  _’Seeing what might happen if we fail hit close to home.’_  
  
 _’Honestly V, I’d be worried if you didn’t find it disturbing. Shows you know the stakes.’_

It still surprised her now and then the ease with which Bull signed. Vee had to remind herself that he was already speaking a second language, and of course there was the Ben-Hasserath angle to consider.  
  
 _’Now that we have the mages, we’ll make sure that it never happens.’_  
  
Bull pulled a face.  _’Not gonna argue the decision, V, but those guys will be trouble.’_  
  
 _’We need them,’_  Vee signed, before adding, her expression stern.  _’They were desperate, they thought they would be slaughtered. It was a bad decision, but they didn’t have much of a choice._  
  
Bull slowly nodded.  _’Suppose. The job comes first.’_  
  
“You two still doing that hand-talking thing?” strolling over from the direction of the gate was Sera, one of those that hadn’t made the journey to Redcliffe. She hopped onto a nearby fence, swinging her legs in front of her. “So, what you finger-wiggling about?” she stopped, let out a little giggle. “Finger-wiggling, like… haha.”  
  
Vee signed, Bull translated.  
  
“Vee says that we’ll be able to get the Breach closed soon, if the plan works.”  
  
“Good. It’s frigging scary. Nice when things get back to normal, yeah?”  
  
The big qunari chuckled. “Aren’t gonna get any arguments from here. Still, peace will need keeping even without demons showing up every five minutes.”  
  
 _’I admit, there’s no way anyone’s dragging me back home after this,’_  said Vee.  
  
Sera, she noticed, was frowning, sloppily copying the same motions that Vee had just made, then shaking her head, even after Bull relayed what had been said. “Still weird,” the elf announced. “Words are words. But you, you’re all right, so I can try.”  
  
Vee raised an enquiring eyebrow, Sera shifted, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden.  
  
“Look, you’re a noble, yeah? But you don’t act like one, don’t kick the little people. You help, you help a lot. And the talky thing, you don’t cover it up like it’s bad or pretend like it’s just part of your swanky noble-ness. Makes you more real, more like an actual person.”  
  
Vee’s mouth quirked into a lopsided smile.  _’Thanks, S e r a,’_  a glint of mischief.  _’But what if I’m not a real person? What if I’m a ghost? A spooky ghost!’_  
  
Bull was laughing as he translated, and Sera giggled too.  
  
“Don’t be an arse!”  
  
“Sorry Sera, but it’s too late now; you’ve let the cat out of the bag. Vee’s like this all the time.”  
  
Vee smiled sweetly at Bull’s condemnation, or was that commendation? She needed moments like this, more than she would dare tell anyone. This was the first responsibility she’d ever taken upon herself voluntarily, and the gravity of the situation was like standing on top of a cliff. If she ever looked down, the vertigo would make her fall. Bull, Solas, Varric, Cullen, even Sera, they were the ones holding onto her, stopping her tumbling over the precipice.   
  
If it wasn’t for them reminding her and keeping her grounded, then she would have turned tail long ago. Wouldn’t have been the first time Vee took one look at a situation she disliked and opted out. Ostwick was one of them. But not here, not now. She couldn’t let them down. She couldn’t give up on her friends.   
  
Vee had made precious few of those in her life to throw them away.


	12. Chapter 12

The Breach was closed.  
  
It felt unreal to even think that, but after months, after all of their efforts to rally support, help out the common folk, secure the mages, the Inquisition had done it, and Vee had been at the forefront.  
  
They’d closed the Breach.  
  
All Haven was celebrating, singing and dancing, snatches of hymns emanating from the campfires and tents. Vee could feel the joy of the crowds, their spirits never higher than that moment. Standing in front of the chantry, overlooking the festivities in a rare spot of solitude and quiet, she could finally take a moment to catch her breath. It was like the opposite of Redcliffe, buoying her, filling her with a strange kind of energy. Not a bad kind, though; powerful and exuberant. She needed to talk to Solas about what had happened; she’d been fobbing him off with excuses about preparing to close the Breach for the three days since returning. He hadn’t liked that, Vee knew him well enough by now to be able to tell, but he also hadn’t pressed the issue.  
  
Vee felt a little guilty for actively avoiding discussing it with her friend. Solas had always had her back, even when everyone else had thought she was to blame for the explosion at the Conclave. In truth, she was simply scared of what revelations may come from talking about her experiences. The so-called passenger had allowed her to ‘hear’ people and detect their moods; it had never before caused her to become physically debilitated. What if it was influencing her further?  
  
Well, talking to Solas wasn’t going to change it one way or the other, and he was the resident expert on the subject of spirits. Vee couldn’t even dream of bringing this up with Vivienne, for instance; her imagination brought up instant thoughts of the mage’s appalled expression, her curt dismissal… and that was ignoring that to ask Vivienne for advice would be to let someone else in on the secret to interpret for her.  
  
No, Solas and she needed to have a talk.  
  
“Fine evening, Violetta.”  
  
Oh, Maker.  
  
 _’C u l l e n,’_  they’d barely spoken since Vee had inadvertently heard his thoughts and reacted by running away. Things had been stilted and awkward since, the commander doubtless feeling that he’d offended her and resolving not to do so again.  
  
Cullen gave a tentative smile and took a step closer, though he maintained a respectful distance. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you.”  
  
 _’What about?’_  
  
“I fear I may have been overfamiliar the last time we talked alone, and I wanted to reassure you that-“  
  
He stopped as Vee held up her hand, a knot in her gut. Pure professionalism was the last thing she wanted, especially from Cullen.  _’That wasn’t it at all, C u l l e n. I just-‘_ there was only the briefest moment of hesitation before she launched into the lie. She’d been distorting the truth since she was a child, though it had never provoked this much guilt.  _’I was feeling unwell. For feminine reasons. I needed to take a few moments alone.’_  
  
Cullen frowned, and then his eyes widened abruptly as comprehension dawned. “Oh. Oh, uh- that’s uh… unfortunate. I was concerned that I had overstepped my boundaries.”  
  
Vee shook her head, able to find a smile. A white lie, she told herself, it was simply a white lie.  _’No. The only fault was with timing, please don’t worry.’_  
  
 _Realisation. Relief. I jumped to conclusions. I didn’t truly upset her._  
  
“That’s… well, shall we start this one over, then?” Cullen straightened up then, with his eyes locked onto his hands, he signed.  _’I would like for us to be friends, V i o l e t t a,’_  He’d practiced that.

 _’I would like that too,’_  she was smiling, the exchange somehow all the more endearing for how awkward it was.  
  
“So…” Cullen regarded her, head tipped ever so slightly to the side. “Now that the Breach has been sealed, what do you mean to do?”  
  
Vee’s eyebrows went up, then down again. Cullen had always seemed so focused on the job at hand that she’d never expected him to be thinking about the future; though perhaps there no longer  _was_  a job at hand.  _’We’ll still be needed,’_  she signed after a moment to think.  _’Closing the Breach doesn’t mean that every rift in Thedas will be sealed, and well, even though it would be nice, I don’t think us bringing the mages in will stop the fighting overnight.’_  
  
Cullen nodded. “I confess, I worry that our support may erode now that the most obvious threat has been dealt with,” he hesitated. “I also thought that you yourself may have been considering leaving. You’re a long way from home, and have a lot of responsibilities, at that.”  
  
 _’Thank you for reminding me,’_  Vee gave Cullen just long enough to look surprised – then pained, before winking to take the sting out of her words.  _’If they want to take me home then they’ll have to tie me to a horse. I have no intention of going back. Not now, perhaps not ever.’_  
  
“Is the situation with your mother so dire?” Cullen asked softly.  
  
Vee glanced up; he’d remembered. She’d eventually penned a reply to her mother’s letter… and Lady Harriet’s reply had, naturally, been that she should stop blaspheming by claiming divinity. Some things never changed, and Vee’s mother making massive assumptions was one of them.  _’Yes. Always has been. My parents wanted another perfect little soldier of the faith. Maybe they thought that if they put enough of their children into the chantry, they’d corner the priest market. I picked up all the belief and none of the discipline.’_  
  
Faith had proven almost as difficult to retrieve from the depths of her memory as her speech. Vee still wasn’t sure how much of her belief was fuelled by its own power and how much by how closely she’d been forced to hold her remembrances to stitch them back together again. Her faith hadn’t been damaged beyond repair, but she couldn’t see herself spending months living with the chantry sisters again. Optimistically Vee wished to say that was because she had found purpose now, and that returning would be a step back. On the other hand, she had a nagging doubt that her conviction in the Maker was still strong enough for that lifestyle.  
  
“I suppose that the group you’re part of being censured by the chantry can’t have gone down particularly well.”  
  
 _’At this point they think I do such things specifically to annoy them,’_  Vee shrugged.  _’They couldn’t care less that nobody outside of the Inquisition is even bothering to try to restore order. I don’t doubt that their opinion of us was damaged just because I’m here,’_  her parents had never let anything so inconvenient as the facts get in the way of objecting to anything Vee did on principle. They’d even managed to twist her becoming affirmed into something that it wasn’t… though considering part of her motivation to do so was spite, that was one case where they perhaps had a point. It didn’t matter. She’d had damn good reasons to leave home, good enough that a little spite could be overlooked.  
  
“I see. I recall Josephine mentioning that you’d told her not to bother petitioning your family for aid. Are they all so disapproving of you?” Cullen looked so concerned for her, brow creased, eyes full of sympathy. For Vee, this was all just matter of fact. Her parents and she were never going to see eye to eye, no matter how much of a punch to the gut it was to admit that.

 _’I have a cousin or two that don’t follow the T r e v e l y a n traditions, but we were always kept apart. They probably thought we’d start a conspiracy or something. I was close with some of my siblings for a time, but I was marked as the troublemaker, the black sheep,’_  that was one of the memories that had been unpleasant to uncover. Remembering how her brothers and sisters had steadily become more distant as her parents and their precious heir had told them not to ‘encourage’ her. Remembering how it had been to see more and more of her father in the sidelong glances from her younger siblings.  _’But what really finished it off with my siblings was getting thrown out of the templars.’_  
  
Cullen stared at her. “Wait… you were a templar?” there was little more than stark disbelief in his tone, so much so that Vee found herself grinning, in defiance of the conversation’s seriousness. He seemed to notice the grin, because he shook his head. “No, you’re jesting with me. I must stop falling for your tricks-“  
  
He stopped, because Vee was shaking her head too now.  _’You have my word that it isn’t a joke. Ask L e l i a n a, if you don’t believe me. I never actually completed my training, but I was part of the order for several years. My parents hoped it would calm me down, and it meant I had two brothers to be a ‘good influence’ over me. Three, whenever D a v i n visited from S t a r k h a v e n.’_  
  
“Forgive my scepticism, Violetta. I simply find it difficult to imagine you as a templar.”  
  
 _’It wasn’t so bad at first; it was nice to have an outlet for my faith, and to not be chastised for learning how to fight. I couldn’t believe that I was finally somewhere that they didn’t mind that I knew how to use daggers. But after a while I started to feel uncomfortable. At times it seemed that the knight instructors wanted us to hate mages, not keep them safe and protected. I suppose tensions were high even then. Either way, it didn’t seem right, hating someone for something they were born with, that was completely out of their control. Then, there was the business with lyrium, talking about crafting our own philters, how taking it would change us, and I didn’t know if I wanted that, either. One day I caught sight of my reflection in the lake outside the academy and just saw a woman in armour, just following orders like a good little soldier. I didn’t feel like myself any more, and I suppose I just decided to throw the yoke off. I was out for insubordination within two weeks.’_  
  
A flicker of something came and went on Cullen’s face, quickly enough that Vee couldn’t be certain precisely what it was. She wouldn’t even have noticed if she didn’t have an eye on the intense concentration written across Cullen’s expression; it had to be hard to keep up when she was talking so much. “Many templars forget that mages are their charges.  _Were_  their charges. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised you found that life unfitting for you; at times I questioned my own role in the order.”  
  
Vee felt like a royal idiot. There was her talking about her past, completely forgetting that Cullen too had been a templar, and not one that had left during training, either. _’Do you miss it?’_  
  
“A little,” Cullen admitted after a slight pause. “But the order lost its way, nowhere more so than in Kirkwall. I have no regrets about joining the Inquisition.”  
  
 _’I’m glad it turned out this way.’_  
  
Cullen looked at her for a moment, both eyebrows rising. “I… well, I could say the same-“  
  
The night air was shattered by the ringing of alarm bells. There was a brief instant where the two of them just stood there frozen, and then Cullen sprang into action.  
  
“We must get to the gate!”  
  
Vee followed, but as she did, she was seized by an impression of overpowering malevolence.  
  
 _Interloper. Insolence. It is mine. It will be answered for._


	13. Chapter 13

Haven was gone. Buried.  
  
Vee’s teeth chattered as she trudged through the snow, arms wrapped around herself.  
  
Shellshocked. They’d never expected an attack, not when the greatest threat was supposed to be behind them.  
  
They’d most definitely, not in an Age, expected an attack to come with a dragon and some kind of… darkspawn creature.  
  
Corypheus.  
  
Thanks to him, the closest thing Vee had to a home had been destroyed, and he could yet take more.  
  
Where  _was_  she?  
  
Flurries of snow fell upon her, as if trying to drive her down into the ground, make her give up.  
  
The mountains around Haven had never looked like this, never so cold, so dark, so inhospitable.  
  
So hopeless.  
  
It was an unknowable time later, of forcing herself to keep moving, continuing on, wearily stepping forward, that Vee realised what truly was gouging at her, spreading doubts and fear into her thoughts.  
  
For the first time in a very long time, since before the Conclave, and receiving this mark, this… Anchor, she could hear nothing.  
  
There was silence in her mind.  
  
She’d heard them as the Red templars assaulted Haven, heard them fight, heard them struggle.  
  
 _Agony. Awe. How can they be so strong? How could the templars attack us?  
  
Pain. Perserverance. Can’t give up now. Can’t let everyone down.  
  
Fear. Fortitude. We must keep fighting. We can’t win._  
  
Were they all dead? Was this how it ended? Frozen and alone with no one to even burn her body?  
  
It couldn’t be. She couldn’t let it.  
  
They were stronger than this.  _She_  was stronger than this.  
  
The signal had gone out that the retreat had been successful; the others had followed the Chancellor’s path and made it clear. They had to have done.  
  
Burying Haven was worth it for those lives. If they hadn’t escaped, then…  
  
No. No. She couldn’t think that way. She just had to press on.  
  
They’d be there. Over that drift, or the next one, or the next one.  
  
They had to be.  
  
Vee shivered, still walking, still walking.  
  
She could barely see from the flakes dusting her eyelashes, coating and covering her shoulders and hair. Trees went by, rocks. Vee stumbled once, and she fell, hands barely catching her from falling on her face.  
  
Up. She had to get up.  
  
Vee levered herself upward, getting her legs back underneath each other, glazed eyes barely focusing on what was ahead.  
  
There was a glow on the horizon.  
  
One.  
Foot.  
In.  
Front.  
Of.  
The.  
Other.  
  
And she heard it.  
  
 _Figure. Foe. No, a survivor. No, we must help._  
  
“Someone’s here commander-“  
  
“VIOLETTA!”  
  
Vee fell into broad, strong arms, and she just barely managed to smile before exhaustion claimed her.


	14. Chapter 14

Skyhold.  
  
Even saying the name brought a gentle lift to Vee’s spirits. It had turned into a symbol, a rallying point for the remnants of the Inquisition, beaten, but not broken. With such a strong association with the ambitions of their organisation, their efforts to rebuild, it was almost impossible for Vee not to feed off the anxious hopes of everyone around; those that had survived Haven, and those that now flocked to their banner. The murmurs and whispers weren’t any clearer than before, but perhaps she was a little better at listening to them now.  
  
It was both a blessing to have the motivation those feelings gave her and a curse to once more be reminded of the oddity in her mind. Ever since Redcliffe and that crushing, horrible experience, Vee’s sensitivity to the thoughts and emotions of others had increased, as if tearing a wound in that part of her had caused it to heal all the more strongly. Vee couldn’t claim that it didn’t make her uneasy, but it also helped her through the tough times, through the grim knowledge of how badly they’d been beaten back at Haven. The Inquisition wouldn’t come back from another defeat like that one, and how could they fight an ancient magister that was able to command a dragon?  
  
They’d have to find a way. That glimpse into the future gave them an inkling of a plan, at least. If they could make the right moves at the right time, Corypheus could be outmanoeuvred.  
  
Vee had to believe that, or they didn’t have a chance.  
  
At least the repair efforts were going well. Solas had been as good as his word when he’d said that the ancient fortress was just waiting to be reoccupied. However, there was a lot of work to be done to get the place back into working order, back into a state fit to be seen by new arrivals, visitors. They still hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss… things. There had been too much to do in between keeping the refugees from Haven safe and her own scouting, and now, well.  
  
Her own duties.  
  
Inquisitor. It didn’t seem like a real word. Inquiiiisitor. Vee hadn’t wanted it; leading wasn’t for her, and never had been. There had been flirtations with grooming her as an officer in the templars, but Vee was almost as bad at giving orders as she was following them. In combat she always allowed Cassandra or Bull to direct traffic, Blackwall and Vivenne in a pinch. She was too busy concentrating on whose unprotected back needed a knife in it to pay attention to the overall flow of an engagement, and she couldn’t shout orders even had she wanted to.  
  
Vee couldn’t see how it was any different outside of skirmishes and battles. She’d sat in on meetings with the Inquisition’s inner circle, but she’d never tried to claim that she had the final say. Cullen and Cassandra had a better grip on military matters than she did, Josephine had more diplomacy in her little finger than in Vee’s whole body, and Leliana seemed to know secrets about Vee that even she didn’t. All she had was a mark. A mark that had apparently come from their very own enemy. It gave her importance, yes, it meant that she was required out in the field, to shut rifts, and perhaps it too made her a symbol.  
  
But a leader? For Andraste’s sake, how was she supposed to inspire and rally when most of the Inquisition couldn’t understand her? Vee somewhat doubted the strength of a speech that had to be delivered second hand. Seemingly that hadn’t mattered to Cassandra or Leliana. According to them, the decisions that she’d made qualified her for the role; decisiveness with the mages, her part in covering the retreat at Haven. The people under their command looked up to her, saw her as the hero who had survived impossible odds.  
  
Vee still didn’t like it… but if she could bring some belief and inspiration to others by being the Inquisitor, then she could accept it.  
  
Raised voices reached Vee as she descended the long staircase leading to the triage that had formed close to Skyhold’s front gate. The wounded and the dying were another reminder of what they’d lost in Haven, perhaps were yet to lose. Vee frowned, recognising one in particular immediately; she’d spent too much time with Solas not to know what he sounded like. It took only another moment to realise he was arguing with Vivienne.  
  
Just what she needed.

“It is a demon, you cannot keep it as a pet!”  
  
That caught Vee’s attention, and as she finally reached the bottom of the stairs, she was able to see what was at hand. Solas, Vivienne, Cassandra… and Cole, the strange boy that had provided what precious little advance warning they’d had of the attack in Haven.  
  
There was a flash on uncharacteristic anger on Solas’s face. “Call him what you wish, but he has harmed no one.”  
  
“Yet,” snapped Vivienne.  
  
 _’What’s going on?’_  Vee signed, deliberately scuffing a boot on a stone in order to draw attention with the sound.  
  
“We are discussing Cole,” Solas’s irritation gave way to something closer to discomfort. “It seems that he is a spirit.”  
  
He gave Vee a significant look, and she responded with a very slight nod.  _’But he has a human body.’_  
  
“Yes, that is quite an oddity, but the body is his-“  
  
Vivienne cut Solas off. “It has possessed a body, and doubtless is waiting for the next opportunity to strike!”  
  
Cassandra gave Vee a helpless look. She got the sense that they’d been at this for a while.  
  
 _’I’d like to see him.’_  
  
“I’m not sure that is the best course of action,” said Solas, a flash of warning in his eyes. “I doubt he would even be able to communicate without another there to facilitate-“  
  
 _’If he means harm, then he’ll have a rather more difficult time with someone he can’t understand.’_  
  
Without waiting for further comment – or protest, Vee turned, scanning for Cole. Wait, where had he gone? She blinked, focused again, and there he was off by the triage, farther away than seemed quite possible for how long she hadn’t been looking.   
  
Cole was holding a canteen of water out for one of the wounded when Vee reached him, the injured woman rasping out her thanks. He didn’t look up at her approach, but then murmured quietly.  
  
“Voice sticks in the throat. Mouth won’t move, won’t listen. They treat me like a broken thing, but it’s not broken, just forgotten…” he trailed off, and then looked up to her. His eyes were sad. “I don’t know how to fix the big hurt, but I can fix one of the little ones. I understand.”  
  
Vee’s hands hung limply by her sides. What Cole had just done was- well, it was eerily reminiscent of her own strange thoughts. Apparently her ‘passenger’ and Cole had something in common. Her fingers signed falteringly.  
  
 _’You mean you can speak sign?’_  
  
Cole tilted his head to the side, his broad-brimmed hat casting strange shadows on his face. “No. I … listen to the hurt. It hurts you when people can’t talk to you, so I do.”  
  
He made sense in a way that made absolutely no sense.  
  
 _Maimed. Mutilated. Will I ever walk again? Will I die?_    
  
In unison, Cole and she looked to one of the nearby soldiers, their leg broken in several places, shivering slightly. Vee had a blanket in her hand before she even realised she had grasped it, and a second later, Cole was helping her drape it over the soldier’s form.  
  
Cole’s eyes were wide with something like wonder when they both straightened up. “You heard him. He was hurting and you heard him,” a pause, and then he was… looking at her again. Strangely. “Whispers on the edge of thoughts, impressions that can barely be heard… Memories murmuring mysteries...”  
  
 _’How do you know all of this?’_  
  
“You’re like me,” said Cole, and then frowned. “No, close. It’s tangled, twisted, teasing, torturing…” he shook his head. “It must have hurt very much.”  
  
 _’I don’t understand,’_  At an understatement, this was unsettling. She’d come here expecting strangeness, but not to be seen through like a pane of glass.  
  
“You’re her, but not her. You tried to save her but… she didn’t survive. Floating, calling out. Can I help? Touching is too much, drawn inside, drawn into a body…”  
  
 _’Look,’_  Vee signed desperately. What in Andraste’s name was he talking about?  _’Do you intend to stay with the Inquisition?’_  
  
“I would like that.”  
  
 _’Then feel free to find a place to bunk. And welcome, C o l e.’_  
  
“My name sounds different when you say it,” Cole murmured softly, then bobbed his head in a nod. “If I stay and help, we can stop them from hurting people.”  
  
Cole turned back to the injured. Stumbling like she’d been knocked down by a runaway horse, Vee walked away. It was time to have it out with Solas.


	15. Chapter 15

He listened with his hands folded neatly in his lap. Vee spoke of Cullen, of Redcliffe, of how that had changed things. Lastly, she spoke of Cole.  
  
As she finished, Solas stood and hugged her fiercely.  
  
“I am sorry,  _ma’falon_. I did not realise this was so difficult for you.”  
  
Vee’s arms were around his shoulders; she did not want to let go to speak.  
  
“We have spoken before of how spirits in our realm are changed and shaped by their experiences. Your companion it seems is much the same. Since it is now a part of you, it appears that the result is that you have become more attuned to a spirit’s way of seeing the world.”  
  
He spoke softly, talking more or less into the top of her head. Normally Vee hated being short, but this was not one of those times.  
  
“As for Cole, his very nature allows him to see that you are different from others. It is little surprise that he would assume that he and you are alike,” Solas shifted slightly, patting her on the back reassuringly. “It may take some time to explain that his crossing of the veil was not precisely the same as you receiving spiritual assistance.”  
  
Much like their last conversation on the topic, Vee felt an abrupt twinge of anxiety and suspicion in her gut. Stronger? Or was she simply ‘reading’ Solas better for this so-called attenuation to the spirit? She was sure of it now; Solas was holding something about this back, and a little dagger scraped its way down Vee’s spine. What reason could Solas have to lie, or conceal the truth? Moreover, how could she possibly confront him about it?   
  
He was her closest friend. He wouldn’t be lying to her deliberately without good reason. He hadn’t told her about the spirit in the first place, probably because it would have spooked her. Maybe there were simply elements of this ‘partnership’ that held some unpleasant truths.  
  
Vee tried to rationalise it. Cold logic strongarmed her and told her to stop being such a naïve child. If she’d meekly followed and believed everything anyone had told her, she’d be a sister in some poky little chantry at the back end of the Free Marches.  
  
Just, for once in her life, she was hesitant to force an argument. She needed to think about how to approach this.  
  
_’How can you be so sure that the spirit doesn’t affect me?’_  Vee signed as the hug was finally broken.  
  
“Assuming you mean its effect on your actions, you simply need to look at Cole. He does not understand many elements of this world because of his residence in the Fade. Your spirit  _may_  have an influence, but from what I can tell, its motivations would have been altruistic ones. Cole, I believe, is Compassion. Yours is not the same, but it is not dissimilar, either.”  
  
‘It does affect you, but only in good ways!’ was what Vee heard. Great. Very reassuring.

 _Steering. Subtle. She must be kept safe. She must not know._  
  
Vee eyed Solas. She wanted to trust him. This intuition, the spirit hearing things in the back of her head, they made it impossible.  
  
She was trying to find the signs to express her misgivings when there was a voice from the door.  
  
“Squeaks?” Varric was standing there on the threshold. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s someone that you really should see.”  
  
She looked back to Solas.  _’We can talk more about this later.’_  
  
_’I look forward to it.’_  
  
Vee joined Varric at the door, following him out of the rotunda.  
  
_’Is this the friend you were talking about?’_  she asked as they walked, and Varric gave a slight nod.  
  
“It’s probably best if we meet her on the battlements. Don’t want to cause a fuss.”  
  
Vee frowned as they crossed Skyhold’s courtyard, heading for the set of stairs that led up to the fortress’s walls. Suspicion of exactly who was waiting for them was growing. There was a subtle spring to Varric’s step that was easy to miss, and she perhaps would have done if she couldn’t pick up on the dwarf’s excitement. He was too well practiced at keeping his cards to his chest to let anything show on his face. Vee’s eyes went away from her companion as they climbed up, and once they reached the top, settled onto the lone figure on the battlements.  
  
Books were one of the parts of her memory that had proved difficult to retrieve. However, Vee still remembered enough of the  _‘Tale of the Champion’_  to know who the dark skinned, frizzy-haired woman looking out across the spectacular view was.  
  
“Vee, meet Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall.”  
  
“A title I’m not sure means much anymore.”  
  
Vee looked Hawke up and down. She towered, easily over six feet tall, muscles obvious beneath her travel clothes, a sword almost as big as Vee slung across her back. A brutal set of scars marked the left side of her face, deep gouges made by talon or claw. A woman of iron. Violetta’s eyes went to Varric, raising an eyebrow in question.  
  
“I’ve filled Hawke in on some of the details, she knows that I’ll have to-“  
  
_You’re shorter than I thought you’d be,’_  Hawke signed.  
  
Varric’s jaw hung open, then he closed it with a click, shaking his head. “Remember when we talked about the tact thing, Paws?”  
  
“I remember I told you not to call me that.”  
  
Vee glanced between the two of them; Varric hadn’t expected that Hawke would be able to sign. Which meant… she’d managed to learn since Varric’s letter had gone out, which was barely a week ago.

 _’I’m as tall as I need to be.’_    
  
_’We’ll see,’_  Hawke answered enigmatically.  
  
“Okay we’re going to have to hold up for just a second. How the hell did you learn that so fast? It took me a damn month just to say my name straight,” Varric seemed to be running a narrow line between irritated and genuinely impressed.  
  
“If I’m to take a quote from your book, Varric, I believe the relevant one would be that I’m ‘as stubborn as three druffalo, willing to slam my head against any problem until it gives way,’. Sound familiar?”  
  
“You left out the part where I said you had the hair of one.”  
  
“At least mine remains on my head, not my chest.”  
  
“Among other things. Unless you’ve forgotten  _why_  I call you Paws?”  
  
“Look, it was cold, and it was one time.”  
  
“Only because you nearly gave Merril a heart attack when she saw you walk into town wearing a dead wolf. I’ll bet you’d still be parading your wolf hat around like you were on the catwalk if it wasn’t for that.”  
  
This was moving a little bit quickly for Vee. She couldn’t even tell if they were arguing.  
  
_’V a r r i c says you can help us,’_  Vee signed, stepping forward. Hawke flashed a look at Varric as if to say ‘this isn’t over’ and then nodded.  
  
“There are a handful of things I can do. You walk with Andraste, and if it wasn’t for what happened in Kirkwall, I’d have been the first to lend a hand. I only regret that I’ve been kept from the Maker’s work for this long.”  
  
Vee tried not to let her surprise show. Stories she’d heard about Hawke did not summon the image of deep religious views, and she didn’t precisely resemble your average chantry-goer, but the other woman’s evocation of the Maker seemed entirely sincere.  
  
“You’re here now, and you had damn good reason not to show up before,” Varric said softly.  
  
“Maybe,” Hawke looked out across the battlements, down to where the Inquisition bustled below. “In any case, apart from my personal assistance, I have a couple of leads for you to investigate; one concerns these red templars of yours, and the other involves the Grey Wardens. Finally, although he has his own problems, I can use my husband’s connections and resources, at least sparingly.”  
  
_’Wait, you’re married?’_  
  
Hawke smiled, and for a moment, her ravaged face was serene, almost beautiful. “My dearest Sebastian. Why he puts up with me I’ll never know.”  
  
Varric chuckled. “Choir Boy knows that he’s in too deep; back out now, and he’ll get his arms ripped off.”  
  
“Very funny,” Hawke’s smile was gone, and the change it brought was so drastic that Vee wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. “Starkhaven is a long way away, but if I ask, Sebastian will do what he can.”  
  
“Honestly Paws, I’m surprised that saying Andraste three times hasn’t caused him to pop up out of nowhere. You and religious purpose in one place? He wouldn’t be able to contain himself.”  
  
Hawke made a gesture at Varric. It was not one of the signs Vee had needed to learn.  
  
_’That all sounds good to me. Thank you, H a w k e.’_  
  
“It’s the least I can do, Inquisitor, especially with that bastard Corypheus still breathing somehow.”  
  
Vee made a face.  _’That title is still strange.’_  
  
“Trust me when I say that sometimes you don’t get a choice about such things. You’re an example now, like it or not; best to just get on with it.”  
  
“Ahh Hawke. I think what I missed most about you was your softly-spoken and gentle approach to the problems of others.”  
  
“I missed you too Varric, but I’ve forgotten why already."  
  
_’I suppose complaining about it won’t change much. It’s mine now.’_  
  
_’Good attitude,’_  Hawke replied.  
  
_’All right then, tell me about these leads of yours.’_  
  
“I have a friend in the Wardens who has been investigating something for me…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late-on bonus - here are some screenies representing an approximation of how Hawke looks... unfortunately you can't get the major scarring on the correct side of the face (and hers are a bit worse than this), but otherwise, it's a decent shot.
> 
> *quietly mourns the lack of frizzy hair options*
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/pu9Zw93.png  
> http://i.imgur.com/WUk7hJh.png  
> http://i.imgur.com/pTQE3L5.png


	16. Chapter 16

If Vee never saw Crestwood again, it would be too soon.  
  
The plan, originally, had simply been to meet up with Hawke’s friend Stroud, find out what he knew about strange Warden activities, and then move along. In practice, the moment that the Inquisition had moved in, it was to discover that the town of Crestwood was under attack by the undead, bandits were occupying the closest thing to a fortified position in the area, and there was a subterranean rift underneath Crestwood’s lake.   
  
Also it was raining. A lot.  
  
The silver lining was getting to watch Hawke in action. She was a brutal whirlwind of steel, her greatsword flashing through the air in huge swings, mowing down undead and demon alike as if they weren’t even there. Vee was reminded of Bull, just with a few more strokes of finesse.  
  
Speaking of Bull…  
  
“You know Varric, I always thought that you must have spiced it up a bit.”  
  
“A bit of spice can liven up any recipe, Tiny, but which one are you talking about?”   
  
“Hawke fighting the Arishok. But uh… damn, I sure as hell believe it now,” Bull looked around conspiratorially. “Is she taken?”  
  
“Very,” came Hawke’s voice, emerging from the underbrush.   
  
Bull chuckled. “Had to ask.”  
  
“Uh huh,” Hawke’s glare could have struck a man dead at fifteen paces.  
  
 _’Why did you leave out the marriage, V a r r i c?’_  Vee asked as they got underway again.  
  
 _’H a w k e asked me to, S q u e a k s. She’s a pretty private person, and I suppose she wanted the focus to be on what happened in the city instead her personal life,’_  Varric flashed a wink.  _’Plus it never hurts to let your readers pine over a character whom they think is available.’_  
  
 _’V a r r i c!’_  
  
 _’I’m kidding! I’m kidding!’_  
  
 _’I bet,’_  Vee eyed Varric for a couple of seconds, then something occurred to her.  _’So if she’s married, does she have…’_  she stopped, biting her lip, aware that she was stepping into personal territory.  
  
 _’Going to have be a bit more specific, S q u e a k s.’_  
  
 _’Children?’_  
  
Varric winced.  _’That’s… not really for me to discuss. Probably best not to ask H a w k e, either.’_  
  
 _Anxiety. Anguish. A lost family. Another person to lose._  
  
A frown went across Vee’s face as she looked away. That was… that was odd. The whisper had ‘sounded’ like Varric, but it had  _felt_  like Hawke, insomuch as Vee had gained a sense of the other woman in their short acquaintance. Vee’s ability was changing and developing all the time, often in very subtle ways; most of the time she could tune it out and just get on with things, but that was actually more difficult the fewer people were around. In the bustle of a crowd or a town, Vee just got the general sense of mood, and could then tune it out as background noise. When impressions were more distinct and ‘loud’, it was not nearly so easy.  
  
Cole complicated things. He spoke like Vee thought, and that had implications that she didn’t really want to consider. Worse was the fact that him being around seemed to sharpen her own sense for others’ distress, like a sympathetic reaction.   
  
Well, she’d figure it out in time. Probably. Maybe.  
  
 _’Forget I mentioned it,’_  Vee signed to Varric at length. Her curiosity wasn’t worth digging up the wounds of someone she’d only recently met, especially not someone so close to one of her friends.  
  
During their journey to Crestwood, Hawke had kept to herself for the most part. She mostly spoke to Varric, and then in a series of barbs that Vee was beginning to learn was pretty much the foundation of their relationship. Each night, she prayed quietly, hands locked together and held closely to her face. It was difficult for Vee to engage with anyone that wasn’t inclined to begin a conversation; all they had to do was look away and she was silenced.  
  
In the end, Hawke was an ally. She didn’t need to be Vee’s friend, but…  
  
Vee gave a tiny sigh. She knew what it was. Her spirit. It was drawn to the other woman for reasons Vee couldn’t place.  
  
She wished it would leave her alone for once.


	17. Chapter 17

“Sera, no, it’s more like this.”  
  
“Ugh, piss! That’s what I’m doing!”  
  
“You move your hands too quickly.”  
  
Vee, legs crossed, sat atop a barrel outside of Skyhold’s tavern. Nearby Bull was attempting – attempt being the key word, to help Sera sign. It was difficult not to smile at the sight. Sera had made good progress on the ‘understanding’ part, but not so much on the ‘speaking’ part. She signed so fast that it was as if she was trying to make the next motion before she’d finished the one she was currently making. It caused her to be completely unintelligible; Vee didn’t really mind, but it seemed to be like a point of pride for Sera. Now that she’d started, she damn well wanted to finish, regardless of how red-faced with frustration the lessons made her.  
  
“It’s just talking, yeah? I’m hand-waggling like I talk.”  
  
“No, you ‘hand-waggle’ like you’re drunk. If you spoke out loud the way you sign, you’d sound like you just spent the night propping up the bar.”  
  
“Yeah, well, you  _actually_  prop up the bar!”  
  
“Not the point.”  
  
Vee shook her head as she watched the two of them. It was nice to have a break after the grim business that was clearing out the caves beneath Crestwood. All those dead… long drowned. Thankfully the Inquisition had a foothold there now and Vee had met with Stroud, Hawke’s Warden contact, putting them on the trail of a site far in the west of Orlais. That meant no more sodden, miserable Crestwood in Vee’s foreseeable future. She didn’t envy the soldiers who wound up posted there.  
  
“If you were a gambling woman, your worship, how long would you say before the chief gives up and dunks her in that barrel you’re sitting on?”  
  
Glancing to one side, Vee quirked a grin at Bull’s lieutenant, Krem, lazily leaning against the wall next to her with his arms folded. The man was just as willing to poke fun at Bull as she was, which made him all right, in her book. Vee still didn’t know him especially well though; holding conversations with those outside her immediate circle was difficult, and she had to have Solas and the others translate for her too much out in the field for her to feel happy with asking it of them around Skyhold, too.  
  
Still, some signs were universal. After a moment to deliberate, Vee held seven fingers up to Krem, who let out a laugh.  
  
“Really now? You’ve got a more optimistic view of the chief’s patience than I do, your worship.”  
  
Vee shrugged and then pointed to herself. She disliked having to mime; it was what made her feel truly mute. However, Krem wasn’t to know that, and it wasn’t his fault she couldn’t talk.  
  
Krem tilted his head to the side. “You’re saying he puts up with you,” he concluded, after a moment.  
  
Vee nodded. Krem smirked. “Suppose that’s a fair point, your worship.”  
  
Vee held up a hand, thumb and finger extended, pointing upward in a V shape.  
  
“Call you Vee? I don’t know if it’d feel right; you’re our employer, after all.”  
  
She frowned, pointed to Bull, then Sera, then to Krem. She repeated this once, and then pointed back to herself.  
  
“Friend of the chief is a friend of yours?” Krem looked closely at her. “Am I on the right lines?”  
  
Vee nodded again. More or less. This was frustrating.  
  
“I’ll try to keep that in mind your wo- Violetta.”  
  
She flashed a wink at Krem, but then, rocking forward, slid off the barrel and onto her feet. There was a commotion coming from the lower courtyard, near the front gate. Vee took a few steps forward, head inclined to the side. She’d heard the gate open, but now there was some kind of hubbub going on, as if a crowd had gathered around the new arrivals. That was unusual, Josephine hadn’t told her about anyone important due to arrive in the next couple of days.  
  
Vee was walking closer to the source of the sound, aiming to get a better vantage point, when a strident voice rang out from down below. Vee’s blood ran cold and she paled. That voice was unmistakeable, even though she hadn’t heard it in two years.  
  
“Something going on over there, Vee?” Bull called. “Some bigwig show up?”  
  
Vee turned slowly, dreamlike.  
  
 _’It’s my mother.’_


	18. Chapter 18

“…and I simply must have the finest Orlesian drapes for my lodgings, I cannot abide the Fereldan style, ugly, shapeless things.”  
  
Vee moved down the stairs to Skyhold’s gate like she was walking to the gallows. Why this? Why now? Why  _her_? Vee’s father wouldn’t have made for a happy reunion, but at least he was … manageable.  
  
Lady Harriet Trevelyan was not.  
  
Again that voice, layered with perfect elocution and etiquette. “My darling Violetta! There you are!”  
  
Every eye in the courtyard turned to Vee as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Well, nothing for it now. The small crowd that had gathered around Lady Harriet parted to allow Vee through; the comparison to the executioner’s block just became more apt by the moment.  
  
Resplendent in a masterfully tailored dress that was doubtless the height of Orlesian fashion, blonde hair tied in an elaborate twisting style. There stood Vee’s mother. Rigid-backed, not an eyelash out of place, makeup immaculate. And she was smiling. She always smiled.  
  
_Childish. Churlish. So wayward. So wild._  
  
Vee almost didn’t notice that Josephine was standing alongside her mother, no doubt the victim of Lady Harriet’s barrage of outlandish demands. The Inquisition’s ambassador gave Vee a slightly desperate look which confirmed those suspicions.  
  
Lady Harriet leaned forward as Vee approached, and reluctantly, Vee allowed her mother to place a kiss on each cheek. “It’s so good to see you, Violetta dearest,” always with the endearments, too, as if one could blunt the knife by coating it with honey.   
  
Vee curtsied, reminding herself that people were watching, that this was just another battle to survive.  
  
“I was just speaking with your woman here,” Lady Harriet indicated Josephine. “Such a charming young lady, perhaps you could learn a thing or two, Violetta,” she laughed, high and haughty and utterly faked.  
  
Vee tried a smile on for size that died before it even made it onto her mouth. She’d stopped humouring her mother when she was eight years old, there wasn’t much point in beginning now.  
  
Lady Harriet sighed theatrically, her lips turning up at the corners in a smile quite different from the practised one that she constantly wore. Vee had seen that smile many times; it was the smile she donned when she was going in for the kill. “So quiet, my darling! I considered it unimaginable that my headstrong little Violetta would ever undertake a promise so … quaint as a vow of silence, but here you are without a word crossing your lips. Would you not even greet your poor, suffering mother, out of her mind with worry for so long?”  
  
Stone-faced, Vee shook her head. Even were it truly a vow of silence, it was just typical of her mother to immediately try and bait her into breaking it. Damage her reputation just because she couldn’t bear to see the one that got away doing well for herself.  
  
_Surly. Sulking. Just the same as always. Just as stubborn._  
  
There was a small commotion in the crowd behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, Vee beheld reinforcements. She’d sent Sera running for Solas the moment she realised who was at Skyhold’s gate, and now there he was, Bull just behind.

Lady Harriet was too practiced to let any emotion show on her face from Vee’s refusal. “As you wish. But just  _look_  at you dear. Inquisitor; my my, what a dashing title that sounds, does it not? When you left home I was entirely heartbroken, and now here you are, bearing Andraste’s sword for the faithful. I simply had to see for myself. How very impressive.”  
  
Her voice dripped with conceit. Vee made the slightest gesture with her hand and Solas was by her side in an instant. Lady Harriet’s predatory smile returned.  
  
“Oh? Your very own servants too, darling? You there, elf; would you be so good as to collect my luggage from the carriage and stand ready to deliver it to my rooms?”  
  
Vee’s jaw clenched. She wanted to scream in her mother’s face, instead she turned to Josephine, gave a quick nod.  
  
“Lady Trevelyan. Solas is a friend of your daughter’s and her preferred interpreter.”  
  
“A friend?” Lady Harriet sniffed. “Such interesting company you keep, Violetta. Furthermore, it may have escaped your notice, dear, but we speak the same language. I’m quite certain of that, I taught you it. An interpreter is entirely frivolous.”  
  
_’What do you want, mother?’_  It was all that Vee could do to stay focused, let alone be polite.  
  
Lady Harriet donned her finest aghast expression as Solas translated. “Your so-called friend is rather rude, Violetta. One is judged by the company that she keeps, I remind you, and such bluntness reflects poorly on you.”  
  
Vee gritted her teeth. Hard.  _’These are my words, not his.’_  
  
Solas gave her a sidelong glance filled with concern as he spoke. Lady Harriet gave a haughty ‘harrumph’.   
  
“Then those are not the manners that you were raised with. However, I suppose I should hardly be surprised, considering that you abandoned your poor family without even saying a word. We thought you abducted or dead, Violetta, and what did it transpire you had been doing? Leeching off the generosity of the chantry without even the decency to take vows and become a sister.”  
  
Long breath in. Long exhalation. Distorting the truth to suit herself, why expect anything different when it was all she’d ever known her mother to do? Of course to Lady Harriet Trevelyan, Violetta was merely the rebellious child, conveniently omitting anything and everything that she herself had done wrong, up to and including finally driving her away from home. Vee’s hands were trembling with suppressed rage.  _’I left a letter. I just didn’t address it to you.’_  
  
Lady Harriet made an attempt to look hurt, but the mask was beginning to slip, as always when confronted with Vee’s obstinacy. She discarded the expression after scant seconds. “I suppose it’s little wonder I find you out in the middle of nowhere, cavorting with elves and dwarves and Maker-knows what else, playing at leadership.”  
  
_Indignant. Idiot. Throwing away her life. Throwing away her chances._

Since other races were not included in the Chant, naturally they weren’t worth considering. That was Harriet Trevelyan’s world. It took great force of will to keep the signs steady.  _’We’re doing good work here. Important work. I’m not going to stand here and listen to you insult the Inquisition’s people.’_  
  
Vee’s mother laughed coldly. “Delude yourself as much as you like, my dear, but there’s nothing at all necessary about this organisation or your role in it. There will be a new Divine soon enough, and your little group will be completely obsolete. You always had such an inflated notion of your own importance, such disregard for my every attempt to lead you back onto the right path,” Lady Harriet sighed. “Such a waste of your potential.”  
  
_’I don’t need you in my life mother!’_  Vee made the motion so aggressively that she nearly hit Solas. She was on the verge of losing it, breathing rapidly, fists clenched tightly whenever she wasn’t using them to sign. Solas’s look at her was alarmed and fraught in equal measure.  _’Tell her!’_  she snapped, glaring at him.  
  
“Your daughter says that she does not-“  
  
Lady Harriet rolled her eyes. “Do so dispense with this childishness dear. You and I both know full well that you are capable of speaking, and having this discussion through a go between is growing tiresome.”  
  
_’I. Can’t.’_  
  
“She cannot.”  
  
“Oh come now, you of all people should know the distinction between can’t and won’t, Violetta. How many times have we had this discussion? How many times did you tell me that you  _can’t_  recite the Chant of Light, that you  _can’t_  join the templars, that you  _can’t_  dedicate yourself to Andraste, that you  _can’t_  get married?”  
  
_Impossible. Ignorant. She has learned nothing. She will never learn._  
  
The taciturn façade had cracked, and now Lady Harriet advanced on Vee, face like thunder. “I gave you every possible opportunity, Violetta! Chance after chance, and how do you repay me? You throw it straight back into my face! Time and again I hear that you have been up to mischief, that you have neglected your lessons, and the transgressions just became larger each and every time!”  
  
Harriet’s voice was reaching a feverish screech, Vee backed up, then back up again. Had she a voice, this would have already descending into one of the screaming matches that had defined her teenage years. Without that, Vee was robbed of her only weapon.  
  
“Ruining Reginald’s soiree!” Harriet jabbed a bony finger into Vee’s chest. “Being thrown out of the templars!” Another jab of the finger. “Sabotaging your betrothal!” Another. “And worst of all, joining this blasphemous group of heretics, oxmen and knife-ears and-“  
  
The ringing of steel on stone echoed throughout the courtyard as Vee drew her dagger and hurled it so hard into the ground that the blade shattered into pieces. Lady Harriet recoiled at the noise, cutting her off in the middle of her rant.  
  
The courtyard fell deathly silent.  
  
Shaking with fury, Vee pointed at her mother and then cast the hand outward in a motion that could be only interpreted in one way:  _Get out of here._  
  
Wide-eyed, Lady Harriet stared at her. Then, with utmost decorum, she turned straight on her heel and walked all the way back to the gate without a word.  
  
_Remorse. Regret? No, I did nothing wrong. No, she is just foolish._  
  
Vee held on until her mother was out of sight, and then burst into sobs. Solas and Bull were there in a heartbeat, and she clung to them both.   
  
They were more family than the woman who walked away had ever been.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Completely forgot to add this before now; screenshot of how I made Vee in the game! http://imgur.com/MileE1x

After the initial outburst, Vee had needed some space, especially given it had taken place in public. Bull, however, had flat out refused to leave her by herself, and they’d wound up compromising; she could sit out on the battlements so long as Bull was allowed to bar the way up to anyone that might bother her.  
  
Vee could see the tops of his horns from where she was sitting, knees tucked close to her chest, back against the wall. That was the angriest she could ever remember being. Well, since the night she left home, anyway, and that didn’t really count, enshrined as it was with the trophy for the all-time worst moment of her entire life.  
  
Of all the places she’d expected to see her mother again, Skyhold had not ranked high on the list. She must have come all the way from Ostwick, and for what reason? Did she genuinely believe that she could convince Vee to ‘see the light’ at long last? Or, was the prospect of Vee having actually succeeded at something so impossible to her that she simply had to see with her own eyes? Perhaps, buried deep within that cold exterior, there was a modicum of actual concern for the wellbeing of a daughter. If it actually existed though, it was drowned in spite and conceit to the point where it no longer mattered.  
  
Above all, Vee just felt tired. Another fruitless argument in a long line of fruitless arguments that would never come to anything and never change anything. Maker willing, it would also be the last. Solas had relayed word to Josephine that Lady Harriet Trevelyan was no longer welcome in Skyhold without explicit written permission. Any future meeting would be on Vee’s terms, and right now, she couldn’t see that ever happening.   
  
Vee didn’t care. Insulting her was one thing; Lady Harriet had been doing that since Vee was a child. Abusing her friends and her comrades? No. That, Vee would not abide.  
  
“Words sharp like knives, carving cruel cuts. Old wounds made fresh, bleeding again, but scarred. A murmur; No more, she will not do this again.”  
  
Somehow Vee wasn’t surprised to see Cole there next to her, legs hanging off the edge of the wall as he sat in one of the crenellations.  
  
She asked anyway.  _’How did you get up here?’_  
  
Cole blinked, birdlike. “The Iron Bull would have told me to go away, so I made him not see me.”  
  
Vee let out a slow breath. For once, Cole’s presence was almost soothing; there were worse people to have crept past Bull, she supposed.  
  
 _’I’m not very good conversation right now, I’m afraid.’_  
  
Cole regarded her for a moment. “It isn’t about talking. She hurt you,” he frowned. “She wants to help, but instead she just twists the pain into knots, makes it worse. It’s all tangled together… She… believes that she knows what’s right, but it’s what is right for her, not you. So she hurts you over and over again, grasping, gouging, gashing at the hurt, and doesn’t understand why you don’t change.” Cole shook his head. “I don’t think she should be near you.”

 _’That’s one way of summarising our relationship,’_  Vee smiled, but it was brittle.  
  
“Hair floats to the ground like straw, drifting like dreams of days gone by. Scream sweet to the sound, satisfied. You have ruined yourself, she shouts. My hand must have slipped, you reply, you grin. Triumph, tearing, and then laughter like bells ringing, laughter like revenge and resolve.”  
  
Vee had a lump in her throat. She swallowed.  _’I don’t know if that’s a memory you want to go digging up, C o l e.’_  
  
With something like wonder, Cole reached out and touched the scar across the top of Vee’s nose. She flinched momentarily, but did not pull back. “You didn’t want to go away with him, so you cut your hair, made him not want you,” Cole looked down; when he spoke again his voice was hushed. “She was so angry, and then you laughed, and…”  
  
 _’And she threw a goblet at my face,’_  Vee finished.  
  
“Yes. She didn’t mean for it to break.”   
  
 _’That doesn’t make it much better.’_  
  
“Wine running down the face like tears, mixing with the blood. Glass in the cuts, am I blind? Stumbling, shifting, squinting, not blind, but close. She’s hit me before, but not this, never this,” Cole tilted his head to the side. “The hurt is from the throw, not the scars. It hurts that your mother would do that.”  
  
Having him rooting through her memories like this was less than pleasant. This had been an area that she’d been thankful remained hazy and indistinct. Cole’s words were throwing that night back into sharpest relief.  _’She treated me like an unruly dog instead of a daughter.’_  
  
“Yes,” Cole frowned again. “It’s all right. It’s not your pain, you just picked it up. You… remember, but you only think you’re remembering, because you’re not her.”  
  
 _’And you’ve lost me,’_  another of his strange tangents. Vee wasn’t who? Her mother? Well, she most definitely wasn’t, and thank Andraste for that. She liked to think she was above hurling things in anger. At people, anyway. Throwing down the dagger had been the non-verbal equivalent of a scream.  
  
“Wait, no. I did that wrong,” he bit his lip. “I can’t go back and do it again because you don’t forget me. You’ve made yourself real and it makes everything around you realer, even your pain. It… didn’t belong to you, but now it does.”  
  
 _’C o l e, speak plainly. What exactly do you mean by that?’_  
  
“You’re a part of her. Or… she’s a part of you. It’s complicated, clashing currents collecting against each other. You-“  
  
Bull’s raised voice rang out from over by the staircase, cutting Cole off. He was denying someone entry. Vee looked with a frown, trying to work out who it was. When she looked back, Cole was no longer there. She blinked, glanced over the inside edge of the wall. Nope, he was gone without a trace.  
  
She heaved a sigh and stood up. As usual, Cole had raised more questions than he had answered, in actions and in words. She wasn’t really sure how useful his dredging up of the past had been, and that part at the end… she supposed it was probably about the spirit again. Vee walked the short way along the battlements to Bull’s post, the qunari’s height blocking the visitor from view.

“Look commander, Vee made it clear she needed some time alone.”  
  
Cullen.   
  
Vee tapped her foot on the ground in a sharp double rap. Bull looked around.  
  
 _’Let him through B u l l, it’s okay.’_  
  
After a second, Bull nodded, stepping to the side and allowing Cullen past. Vee gestured further along the wall and the two of them walked together for a distance.  
  
Concern was practically pouring off Cullen. Demeanour, expression, and feelings to go along with it.  
  
 _Apprehension. Anxiety. All the commotion. All the anger._  
  
“Are you all right?” Cullen said eventually.  
  
Vee shook her head.  
  
“I see,” he reached out and put an arm around her shoulder, firm and reassuring. After a moment, Vee stepped closer, resting her head against his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing his armour, she realised; how out of sorts she had to be to have not noticed the shaggy ruffle of fur around his neck was absent.  
  
They stood there in silence for several minutes, leaning against the battlements. Cullen, at length, spoke again.  
  
“Josephine informed me of what happened with your mother. I can scarcely believe the audacity of a woman who would show up uninvited and unannounced, expect to be given board, and then insult her would-be host. Her own daughter, no less.”  
  
 _’That’s my mother for you,’_  Vee signed.  _’Her entitlement stretches without limit.’_  
  
Cullen shook his head. “I’m so sorry you had to endure that, Violetta. You deserve better than her.”  
  
 _’We don’t choose our parents.’_  
  
He sighed. His hand had moved from her shoulder, rubbing gently across her back in slow, comforting motions. He didn’t seem to be aware that he was doing it. “You’re right of course. Forgive me. I only meant to say that she mistreated you terribly today; she’s unworthy of you.”  
  
Vee managed a watery smile. She thought she’d made it through the worst of the tears with Bull and Solas, but now here they were threatening again.  _’The last time I saw her, she was ranting about disowning me. If I’m such a disappointment, I don’t know why she didn’t go through with it.’_  
  
“Hey,” Cullen said softly. “You are not a disappointment. You are an incredible woman with incredible burdens, the likes of which she can’t possibly understand. The last thing you need is the approval of a woman who can’t accept that her daughter is at the centre of a great force for good. She cannot take that from you, and if she tries to take your noble name, it damages only her, not you. What precisely do you propose she’d tell her confidants back in Ostwick? That she cut ties with the Inquisitor because she wouldn’t pack up and go home when her mother told her to?”  
  
That conjured a bigger smile from somewhere, that characteristic lopsided twitch of the lips.  _’I suppose she’d seem quite the fool.’_  
  
“If she can’t see what a fantastic daughter she has, she already is one.”  
  
Vee prodded Cullen in the chest.  _’All right. Calm down there, flatterer.’_

“My apologies. I shall henceforth ration my compliments to a more acceptable quantity.”  
  
He kept a straight face for five seconds before, catching sight of Vee’s grin, he broke into laughter. After a little while, his arm went back around his shoulder, and they fell back into that companionable silence. Bull and Solas together had felt stifling, like she couldn’t breathe. Cole had just been too weird to salve her pain. Somehow Cullen alone was just… fine. He fit. He made her feel better without being intrusive, comforting without trying to get into her head or rationalise her mother.  
  
 _’Thank you for being here, C u l l e n,’_  Vee signed, eventually.  _’It’s better than being alone.’_  
  
“If it’s not intruding for me to ask, why were you by yourself in that case?”  
  
Deciding to omit that Cole had found his way past Bull, because ultimately she  _had_  been avoiding company, Vee sighed softly.  _’It was instinct to come away from everyone, I suppose. Whenever I fought with mother I always used to run off to some corner of our estate, just so I could shout and rage at the sky, yell to get the feelings out. Over time it became habit, a way of coping. It also made me a very angry person. Angry at her, my family, everything, really. It got worse after I left the templars.’_    
  
Cullen regarded her for a long moment. “What changed?”  
  
Vee’s eyebrows rose with surprise.  _’I’m sorry?’_  
  
“I have never seen you lose your temper, nor have any your companions spoken of it. The angriest I’ve seen you was when Cassandra kept talking over you at an operations meeting, and even then you only slammed your hand on the table. What changed?”  
  
 _’I…’_  Vee stopped, realising that Cullen was right. She’d always considered herself quick-tempered, but now that she thought about it, this was the first time she’d truly been in that state of furious, unthinking rage for a long while.  _’I suppose it changed after the Conclave,’_  Vee signed slowly.  _’I could make choices without being judged for them. I had direction, a purpose.’_  
  
And a ‘kindly’, soothing spirit in her head, quenching her anger?  
  
Vee had considered this distinction before, thinking about how things were prior to her passage through the Fade. She’d always had difficulty properly piecing the memories together to compare, but this… this was solid evidence. Maybe Cullen’s outside perspective was what had been needed to connect the dots.   
  
It was a conclusion drawn that did nothing to quell her unease about the general concept of having a spirit sharing her mind. If it could affect her personality, then who was to say what else it could have done without her knowing?  
  
Mercifully, Cullen distracted her from that line of thought. “It sounds like the Inquisition has been good for you. I’m glad; at times your duties demand much, and I would hate to think that you got nothing in return.”  
  
Vee smiled. Spirit or no, at least the people she met had made this all worthwhile.  _’I never really had many friends at home. I became close with some of the other recruits in the templars, but we fell out of contact after I left the order. It’s nice to have so many people here that I can talk to.’_

How telling it was that she could say that even with her difficulties communicating.  
  
“Did your parents not allow you to socialise? I’d always thought that was the bread and butter of the nobility, if you don’t mind my saying.”  
  
 _’Yes and no. Everyone I met was weighed carefully, with their political value as an ally or a suitor. You would think it was time to relax on the control by your eighth child, but I suppose with two of my older sisters taking the cloth, I was only the second marriageable daughter in the family. My mother was constantly pushing me towards one person or another to befriend them, discouraging me from associating with those that I actually liked. It was all so contrived, so manufactured. Then, when I hated it, it was my own fault.’_  
  
“That’s no way to raise a child. I’m sorry; I did not mean to make this unpleasant for you.”  
  
Vee shrugged.  _’She made it unpleasant by showing up here. You’ve more than earned the right to hear the grisly details.’_  
  
“Well… at least now you’re here with us,” Cullen hesitated, and then relinquished his hold of her to step in front, allowing Vee to see his hands.  _’I feared for you, after H a v e n. I…’_  Cullen looked away, but when he looked back, there was resolve in his eyes.  _’Couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.’_  
  
 _Confession. Care. Will she think less of me? Will she turn me away?_  
  
Vee just stared at him. There were few ways of interpreting what he had just said, and the ethereal sense of Cullen’s thoughts narrowed those down to one.   
  
Impossible. She couldn’t be the object of such affections from Cullen, they were- they were just friends. They’d spoken to one another, and certainly Vee felt comfortable opening up around him, perhaps more comfortable than even some of her other friends. And of course, he’d told her a little about his past in the templars and his role in the Inquisition, been a sympathetic ear, taken time to check up on her when she was alone, and and…  
  
Oh, Maker.  
  
He did have feelings for her.   
  
Vee stood stock still, her hands unmoving at her side, eyes wide and just looking at him. Cullen faltered.  
  
“I- well um, yes. I should… I should be getting back. I hope you- you remain in good spirits,” he was babbling to fill the silence now. “And-and should you need anything, I’ll be- um, my office, yes.”  
  
 _Rejection. Ruined. You fool. You fool._  
  
Turning, he began to hurry away along the battlements. Something like panic rose in Vee’s stomach. She couldn’t let him leave like this, she had to explain, had to tell him, somehow, had to-  
  
“Cullen.”  
  
It was barely above a whisper. A strained, hushed word that betrayed months of disuse.  
  
Cullen stopped, stood bolt upright.   
  
“Don’t go.”  
  
Her throat hurt with the effort, but her mouth  _moved_ , it shaped, it formed the sounds.  
  
He slowly turned back to her, eyes lit up with amazement.  
  
Through her own stunned shock, Vee managed a tentative smile.  
  
Cullen closed the gap between them in an instant and his embrace banished all thoughts of spirits and chantries and parents from her mind.


	20. Chapter 20

More than one or two words at a time was extremely difficult, and Vee could forget about mustering actual volume. Her voice simply wouldn’t cooperate, resulting in little more than a thin, rasping croak if she tried raising it even to the levels of normal conversation. She wasn’t even sure if it was going to stick at this point; she’d long since stopped saying the only word she’d managed up until now, figuring that saying ‘Vee’ and then nothing else would be weirder than just speaking in sign. At some stage, perhaps from falling out of practice, as absurd as that was, she’d even lost the ability to say that.  
  
This was all a little overwhelming. Between planning the Inquisition’s next move, her mother’s appearance, the return of her speech and… developments with Cullen, Vee’s mind was moving at a mile a minute.   
  
First thing’s first.  
  
 _’I’d prefer to keep this quiet. No pun intended,’_  signing remained preferable at the moment. Her throat was already aching, and she’d hardly mustered a few words.  _’I’m not sure if I’m…’_  Vee hesitated, and then settled on.  _’Better, yet.’_  
  
“Completely understandable.”   
  
 _Incredible. Impossible. She spoke. She didn’t turn me away._  
  
Cullen was surrounded by an aura of contentment and joy, one of the strongest feelings that Vee had ever ‘heard’ from someone. He couldn’t seem to stand still, nor decide what to do with himself, alternating between holding Vee by the hand, putting an arm around her shoulders, and just hovering nearby. “I’ll be sure to keep this between the two of us.”  
  
Momentarily, Vee wondered which ‘this’ he could be referring to, and then pushed the thought away. She still needed some time to process Cullen’s confession, assess her own feelings. She gave a quick nod.  
  
 _’My friends should know, I just don’t want it to spread around the whole Inquisition,’_  Vee’s lips tweaked into a rueful, crooked smile.  _’Not playing down that vow of silence rumour may work against us here, unfortunately.’_  
  
“That’s a promise you never actually made; you can’t be suggesting you’ll maintain your silence because of false assumptions,” Cullen looked genuinely perturbed by the implication. Vee shrugged.  
  
 _’People might get carried away. I…’_  Vee swallowed, again sending a dry pain through the back of her gullet. This was a difficult topic to consider, and she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to think about the extent of her ‘condition’ when she’d finally made a breakthrough. But she couldn’t raise Cullen’s hopes under false pretences, couldn’t let him believe something just because it was more convenient. The idea of doing so tore a raking unease in the pit of her stomach.  _’I may have suffered permanent damage. Just because I spoke a couple of words doesn’t mean I’ll be able to say more, or that I’ll be able to speak... normally.’_  
  
Cullen waited for a couple of seconds, making sure she’d finished, and then took Vee by the hand, gently placing a kiss on it. “Try not to concern yourself. Your speech does not define who you are. If your voice never recovers further, then I will simply consider myself lucky to have heard you speak at all. I…” Cullen hesitated, looking away for a long moment. “I meant what I told you, and I meant it regardless of anything else.”  
  
Vee tried to smile again, but her eyes were filling up, and after struggling to hold back the flood, at last just accepted it, allowing the tears to spill down her cheeks. It was catharsis. Letting go.   
  
Cullen moved, held her again. Vee leaned against him.   
  
She’d never looked at anyone romantically before. She wasn’t even sure how it was supposed to feel. At home, courtship and relations were always phrased as duty and expectations, with personal emotions seemingly without relevance. Vee’s parents certainly hadn’t asked her how she  _felt_  about marrying an Orlesian nobleman twice her age, whom she’d never laid eyes on in her life. Perhaps he would have been kind and gentle as a husband; all she knew was that he’d taken one look at Vee’s shorn head and stormed off. Which, admittedly, had been the point.  
  
“Whenever you are ready, I believe you have a few friends that would be delighted to hear this news.”  
  
 _’Thank you C u l l e n. For being here. For being you.’_

"You deserve nothing less, Vee."


	21. Chapter 21

“Hey, Vee. Everything good now?”  
  
Bull’s eyes were on Cullen even as he addressed Vee. Though he’d been standing watch up on the battlements, Vee didn’t doubt that the qunari would have spared a glance or two their way. He was too observant not to, and she spared a thought for what Bull might be thinking about what he’d seen. He’d be discreet, of course, but there could well be words, sooner or later.  
  
That was a secondary priority, however. Vee nodded slowly, and then concentrated, focusing on her throat, her tongue, her lips.  
  
“Thanks… Bull.”  
  
A stunned expression came across Bull’s face, jaw slack for a moment. And then, with a whoop of exultation, he scooped Vee up by the waist and raised her off the ground, swinging her around.  
  
“Fucking yes!”  
  
Vee’s face was flush and she grinned – a laugh wanted to bubble up, but she couldn’t get the sound out. Bull covered it for her with a deep ‘haha!’, followed by a crushing bear hug.  
  
Bull’s smile was ear to ear as he set her back down on the ground again, and he looked at her for only a second before hugging Vee a second time. Vee returned it, and this was nothing like the comforting embrace of Cullen; it was fierce, relief and friendship in one gesture. Bull ruffled the short blonde mop of Vee’s hair and then took a step back, shaking his head, still smiling.  
  
_Overjoyed. Overwhelmed. Speaking again. Speaking after so long._  
  
It took Vee a few moments to realise that the surge of joy was coming from herself.  
  
-  
  
They caught sight of Varric on the way down from the battlements, with Vee having to protest mightily against Bull’s suggestion that he carry her around on his shoulders in some kind of victory lap of Skyhold. The big qunari’s enthusiasm was infectious, to the point that he almost had her going along with it for a minute before she reasserted her desire to keep everything on the down-low for the moment.   
  
It was difficult not to get carried away, not when Vee’s own excitement at speaking her first words in months was being buoyed by so much zeal she was ‘hearing’ from both Bull and Cullen. There was no filter for her spiritual passenger, though for once, she didn’t actually mind. It meant a lot to know for certain how excited this was making her friends.  
  
Bull waved the dwarf over, and while Varric’s initial expression was concern, that fell away from him once he saw the group’s faces.  
  
“Here I was thinking you’d be all miserable, Squeaks,” Varric sighed theatrically. “I suppose I’ll have to get my dose of inspirational pathos elsewhere.”  
  
“Sorry…” Vee wanted to add ‘to disappoint’, but her throat closed up, dry and crackling. It hurt just to swallow.   
  
“Aw, don’t worry… about it… Squeaks?” Varric slowed to a stop and just, for a moment or two, stared at her.   
  
Vee smiled at him.  
  
“Well I’ll be damned. Aren’t you just full of surprises?”  
  
Varric grinned broadly as he spoke, stepping forward to clap Vee around the back in a hug.  
  
“Just so you know, if it turns out you could talk the whole time, I’m going to make a pretty unflattering portrayal of you in my next book.”  
  
_’I’m dastardly, V a r r i c, but I’m not cruel.’_  
  
“So you claim,” Bull chimed in. “Me, I’m not convinced.”  
  
Vee donned an expression of mock horror.  _’I am betrayed! I trusted you, B u l l.’_  
  
“Sadly, we now know you well enough that you can’t pull the wool over our eyes any longer,” that was Cullen, hovering a step or two behind her.

Melodramatically, Vee put an arm to her head and teetered backwards, miming a faint.  
  
Strong arms caught her before she even started to fall. She looked up to see that curly head of hair – Cullen had got there so quickly as to be almost instantaneous.  
  
Vee flushed slightly, and as she steadied herself, caught the significant look that passed between Bull and Varric. Dammit. The concern was touching, but she didn’t really want to advertise anything before she actually figured out where she stood with regards to Cullen. It was hard at times to distinguish between which emotions belonged to her and which she was feeling  _through_  him. This wasn’t anything like being betrothed to a man she’d never met before, but Cullen was a fair amount older than her and-  
  
Ugh. This was hard. More than a little of the affection was her own; she could say that much for certain. She was close to Solas, Varric, Bull, but she didn’t view them in the same way she did Cullen. That was telling in of itself.  
  
For now at least, her friends were her friends, and they had something to celebrate.  
  
\--  
  
Assurances in hand that the news would be kept quiet, Vee approached Skyhold’s rotunda. Alone.  
  
Her friend sat at his customary place behind a desk, hands steepled, head slightly bowed, deep in thought. Above, Vee could hear the faint rustling of raven wings, quiet conversations drifting down from the library.   
  
“Solas.”  
  
The elf’s head snapped up, and a whole gamut of different emotions passed across his face. Astonishment, relief, worry, at least settling on a gentle half-smile.  
  
_Difference. Discoveries. Did the mother make her more human? Did she change her?_  
  
Vee was – she was  _so_  close to being able to make out exactly what she ‘heard’ from Solas as she walked towards him. There was the sense that he was thinking about what had happened between her and her mother, the sense of anxiety surrounding it, but Vee couldn’t decipher what. Like a whisper on the very tip of her tongue.  
  
_’I’ve only managed a few words so far, but I found it. I found my voice.’_  
  
Solas nodded.  _’And a fine voice it is. Though I must confess, you sound younger than…’_  he faltered in mid-sign, the equivalent of stumbling over a word. If Vee hadn’t spent so long learning from and talking to Solas, she wouldn’t even have noticed as he hastily pushed on.  _’I expected.’_  
  
Vee managed a wry smile.  _’Sorry, but it’s the only one I have, and even then, just barely,’_  she perched herself on the edge of the desk.  _’Thank you for helping me, S o l a s. I wish I hadn’t had to talk to her through you.’_  
  
_’Better, perhaps, had you not been forced to speak with her at all,’_  Solas shook his head slowly, and Vee felt a pang of something that may have been anger from her friend. _’I do not wish to be uncharitable to your mother, but from our conversations, and from this encounter, she is a hateful woman.'  
  
_’I wish it were otherwise, but it’s been a long time since I bothered hoping that she would change,’_  _Vee paused, and then after a second of consideration, switched tack. _’Do you think the spirit… reacted to her somehow? Let me speak again?’_  
  
_Alarm. Anxiety. She suspects. She cannot know._  
  
_’I suppose it isn’t an unreasonable theory. Spirits are often drawn to strong emotions. Perhaps it attempted to sooth your anger by relieving one of the sources of your distress.’_  
  
Make her docile and compliant. Control her emotions, with little ‘rewards’, like finding her words again. She was reminded of Cullen’s remark about rarely losing her temper now. For a benevolent passenger, the spirit sure didn’t seem to be shy about exerting influence over her personality.   
  
All of a sudden, her joy at being able to speak tasted like ashes.


	22. Chapter 22

“I bloody hate sand.”  
  
“You hate everything, Paws.”  
  
The Western Approach was an entirely new kind of inhospitable. It seemed that the Maker had a sense of humour, when tracking down the Wardens had led the Inquisition to both the most sodden place in Thedas and the most arid.   
  
Vee couldn’t decide whether being baked alive was worse than drowning while standing up. At least in Crestwood it was possible to seek shelter and respite from the elements, and at least the rain had  _eventually_  stopped. The heat followed them wherever they went, up until night fell and the temperatures plummeted.  
  
“I do _not_  hate everything,” Hawke complained.  
  
Still. At least Vee was coping better than her famous companion. Hawke wore heavy armour and carried that enormous sword around; the poor woman was sweating by the bucketload. Vee had originally planned to bring Blackwall along, but seeing him growing redder and redder in the face behind his thick beard as they headed further west, she’d decided to show mercy and take Cole instead.  
  
“Hawke, I could literally count the things you don’t hate on one hand.”  
  
Of course, if Vee were engaged in a constant war of words with Varric, then maybe she would be struggling too.  
  
“Remind me again why I put up with you.”  
  
“See. Hatred, right there.”  
  
“I’ll show you hatred in a second, Tethras.”  
  
_’I can’t tell if those two are best friends or worst enemies,’_  Vee signed to Sera, walking alongside her.  
  
Sera grinned.  _’Can be both, yeah? Sometimes your friends are the ones that wind you up the most,’_  she still signed very quickly, but she was at least understandable now. The elf had been incredibly put out when she’d learned that Vee had managed to speak again, and she’d insisted on continuing to learn how to sign, probably out of pure stubbornness. For Vee’s part, audible speech remained difficult, though she was determined not to allow neglect to cause her to lose her voice a second time. She spent time in the mornings and evenings doing exercises, practicing making sounds for as long as she could before it started to hurt. Unfortunately that added up to about ten minutes each session, and she still wasn’t capable of mustering more than a whisper.  
  
Progress was progress, though. It had felt good to surprise Cassandra by thanking her for her support, make a sly little joke at Dorian, much to his delight. She’d even conjured a smile from Vivienne.  
  
_’You don’t say,’_  Vee raised an eyebrow at her friend.  
  
Sera giggled.  _’Hey, come on. Swapping your knives for breadsticks was genius.’_  
  
_’I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on that Venatori’s face when I hit him in the head with a loaf.’_  
  
“Mabari. I don’t hate Mabari.”  
  
Hawke and Varric were still going, Vee glanced back over to them.  
  
“You’re  _Fereldan_ , Paws. Mabari don’t count.”  
  
“Sebastian.”  
  
“You’re married. That means you hate each other at least fifty percent of the time.”  
  
“He’s my husband!”  
  
“And I distinctly recall you complaining that he wouldn’t-“  
  
“ _Varric_ ,” Hawke’s tone spoke of grisly murder, should the dwarf continue.  
  
Varric broke off, laughing. “All right, all right. Point taken, Paws. I suppose I can give you Choir Boy. “  
  
“He looks and you don’t know what he sees. Worry, wracking, writhing, whispering,” Cole drifted seemingly out of nowhere. His gaze was fixed on Hawke’s back. “Is it my face? Fresh wounds, won’t allow the mage to heal them. Don’t deserve healing. They’re guilt and shame and punishment-“

“Inquisitor,” Hawke, overhearing, had twisted around, glancing over her shoulder. There was a dead look in her eyes. “If you don’t shut that thing up, I’m going to throw it through the next rift we find.”  
  
“Hawke,” Varric’s voice was soft. “The kid didn’t mean anything by-“  
  
“I don’t care. If it knows what is good for it, then it’ll stop poking around in my head,” Hawke turned away and marched onward. “We’re wasting daylight. Stroud shouldn’t be far.”  
  
Sera glanced to Vee, then made a face, twirling a finger at her temple. She’d never been fond of Cole’s little bouts of thought-sampling, and had hardly made a secret of it. Vee gave a quick nod, and then a gesture to keep going.  
  
Cole stood still for a few seconds, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. “She hurts a lot,” he said at length, tone hushed. “She’s strong, sturdy, stubborn, but inside she’s sad, suffering, sombre,” he shook his head. “I wanted to help her, but I make her angry. I made it worse,” he sounded utterly guilt stricken.  
  
_’Sometimes when people are hurting, it’s worse to dig things up, C o l e,’_  Vee signed gently.  _’Like how it’s difficult for me to talk about my family. H a w k e doesn’t know you very well, so it comes across as intrusive.’_  
  
“Oh,” Cole seemed to consider that. “But… how do you  _know_  when you can help? The hurt is the same. If I could make her forget me, then I’d be able to do it right, and she wouldn’t know who I was.”  
  
_’That’s something that you’re going to have to figure out for yourself, C o l e. I can’t tell you when people will and won’t react well to you. Most of us don’t have the luxury of trying again if we make a mistake the first time.’_  
  
Cole frowned, tilting his head to the side. “But how do  _you_  know? You help people, you keep them safe, stop them from hurting just by being there. They don’t forget you, but they don’t know you, either. You’re real to them as the Inquisitor, not just yourself.”  
  
Vee hesitated. As usual, Cole was taking a strange tack, dredging up odd thoughts that she didn’t quite know how to properly grasp.  _’Well, Inquisitor is a title, so I’m a symbol,’_  she shrugged lightly.  _’They look up to me even if they haven’t met me personally. Which is probably a good thing, as I’m pretty terrible.’_  
  
“You are?” Cole’s eyes widened.  
  
She couldn’t help but smile as she shook her head.  _’It was a joke, C o l e. And honestly, I don’t know for certain whether anything I’m going to do will work. I don’t read thoughts in the same way as you do. I feel emotions sometimes, but they’re impressions, whispers,’_  abruptly, Vee realised that Cole was the first person she’d spoken to about this since Solas. The spirit in the shape of a man had commented on it before, of course, but she’d never actually spoken with him on the topic. Somehow, she knew that he would understand.  
  
“Oh. You’re very good at it,” he seemed to consider something for a moment. “You took her pain, and it lets you understand. Memories, merging, murmuring. You can help them because you can  _feel_  what they feel.”  
  
_’I didn’t take any pain from H a w k e, C o l e. She’s a closed book to me.’_  
  
“No, not that her.  _Her_. The real one. Like the real Cole.”  
  
Vee’s stomach did a flip flop. She could feel a strange sense of vertigo, like she was falling instead of trudging through sand.  _’I … don’t understand what you mean.’_  
  
“The  _real_  V—“  
  
“Heads up!” Hawke roared from ahead. “Venatori encampment!”  
  
Vee looked at Cole for a long moment, then drew her blades and sprang into motion.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick warning that there's a little blood in this part. It's not overly gory, but there's description of a wound being treated, so if you're squeamish, you may want to bear that in mind.
> 
> Also, it isn't much, but as an inspiration to me as a writer and a huge figure for me when I was growing up, this chapter is dedicated to Sir Terry Pratchett. I wrote most of this today to help me handle the news of his passing. I like to think that's how he would have wanted people to pay their respects.
> 
> R.I.P.

"While I can’t fault your enthusiasm, darling, I do so wish that you would be more careful.”

Vee gritted her teeth as Vivenne’s hands deftly worked their way down her forearm, stretched out across a slab of rock. The surface was still warm to the touch, even with the blazing sun beginning to dip below the horizon, sending a spectacular splash of colour across the sky.

“Sorry,” Vee managed, coaxing the sound out. “Caught by… surprise,” her voice was hoarse, a tiny whisper. The encounter with the Venatori could have gone better. Varric had come close to being roasted by a fireball, Sera had been knocked unconscious, and Cole was nursing what was apparently a broken leg. The only member of the group who hadn’t been injured was, paradoxically, Hawke, in spite of her having spent the entire skirmish right in the thick of things.

For Vee’s part… she gave a little hiss of pain as Vivienne’s needle dug into the back of her arm again, slowly stitching the wound closed. She’d had a dagger dashed from her hands, and been forced to attempt to parry a blow with her vambrace, a technique that she’d been shown in the templars. Perhaps that would even have worked, were she not wearing light armour designed for mobility rather than the heavy plate favoured by the order. As it was, she had a bloody gouge splitting her from wrist to elbow, flashes of white visible in the cut. Before Vee had been cleaned up, she’d been spattered in gore up to the shoulder. Were it not for Vivienne’s magic numbing the pain, Vee didn’t think she could even be conscious for this.

“We have scouts here, Violetta. You will find that it is their job to ensure that such unpleasant surprises don’t happen.”

Vee made a face, but then nodded. The advice was meant in earnest, although if she was being entirely honest, she still struggled to spend very much time around Vivenne. The enchanter had such perfect poise and elegance, was a masterful politician, adept in all spheres of noble socialisation… and reminded Vee far, far too much of her mother.

Vivienne clucked her tongue, and then smiled. “Don’t be so glum, dear. It does us all some good to receive a scare every so often. It’s far too easy to fall into the trap of believing one is invincible.”

Raising an eyebrow, Vee looked pointedly towards her injured arm, evincing a small laugh from the mage. “If I’m not mistaken, darling, this is the first time you’ve been wounded with any degree of severity,” she held up a hand to forestall Vee’s protest. “Falling from your horse does not count, Violetta; harm to one’s pride does not require medical attention.”

Vee made a wordless grumbling sound. She had never enjoyed riding, and while trying to get in some practice en route to the Approach, she’d slipped out of the saddle in full view of the entire Inquisition party and wound up getting dragged several metres along the ground as her foot got trapped in the stirrup. Naturally, everyone who wasn’t her had found this absolutely hilarious.

Vivienne returned to her work, Vee occasionally giving small noises of discomfort. She’d been in pretty bad shape when they’d returned to camp, having to lean heavily on Varric just to walk; she’d lost a lot of blood. Without a mage present nearby, Vee would likely have been in serious trouble as opposed to just discomfort. Restoration magic had been enough to stem the bleeding and replace what was lost, just not quite enough to heal up the wound by itself. Even so, she’d at least managed to make it back under her own power, unlike Cole and Sera, who had both suffered the ignominy of being slung over Hawke’s shoulders and carried. The champion had been uncharacteristically gentle with them both, though she’d also spent the entire trip darkly grumbling about ‘bloody archers always getting knocked out’ (alongside pointedly ignoring Cole). 

“All right, here we are,” Vivienne finished wrapping a bandage around Vee’s arm, tying it off with a neat flourish. “That will need replacing regularly, dear. And please, next time you go off on one of your excursions, do bring at least one mage. I would much rather prevent you from coming to harm in the first instance than stitch you back together.”

Vee nodded again. “Thanks… Vivi-“ she coughed as her throat constricted. Ugh.

The mage patted her on the shoulder fondly. “You’re entirely welcome my dear. Do try not to make a habit of this. I’m quite certain that our commander would greatly prefer that you returned to Skyhold with as few fresh scars as possible.”

Vee started with surprise, and then immediately blushed. The look on her face said ‘how?’ even if her words couldn’t.

“Now now, no cause for concern, darling. Ser Rutherford is rather dashing, though I must say that the secret is liable to become rather ill kept if you continue to stop by his office all hours of the day,” Vivienne – no, that couldn’t be right. Vivenne  _winked_  at her. “Just something for you to consider, Violetta dear.”

With a tentative smile, Vee stood, cradling her injured arm. Now that the numbness was beginning to wear off, it was distinctly uncomfortable, though that beat out the agony she’d been in when the wound was first inflicted. She was going to have to take it easy in the field for a while, a prospect that she didn’t like one bit. The Inquisition’s forces were always in higher spirits when she was around, and the Approach was one place where any lift to morale was appreciated.

She meandered around the camp for a while, checking on each of her companions in turn. Varric was fine, if a little singed, while Sera was as chipper as ever. Cole seemed rather perplexed at the concept of his leg having to be splinted; he was going to need a lot of time, care, and probably magic to get him back in fighting shape. After a loose circuit, Vee found herself out on the fringes, wrapped in a cloak. The nights were almost as unbearable as the days here, frigid and stark.

Vee wouldn’t even have realised that Hawke was sitting with her back against a rock if she hadn’t felt the thought drifting over, quiet and subtle. Much more… gentle than the intensity she’d come to expect from the older woman.

_Protection. Peaceful. They’re so young. They’re just kids._

_’Hello, H a w k e.’_

“Rough today, Vee,” Hawke regarded her for a second, and then shifted up slightly, patting the space next to her. The glow from the campfire a ways behind them caught her face at an odd angle, throwing her scars into macabre relief. Her fingers drummed a beat up and down a weathered knapsack in her lap.

Vee sat down.  _’I thought we were in trouble, for a while,’_  she admitted, after a few moments of silence.

“You thought right. A little less luck and half of us would be dead,” Hawke gave her a critical look. “I can’t believe you blocked a blow with your arm. That’s not a technique I’d expect from someone who fights like you do.”

_’ It was instinct. I haven’t used a shield for a while, but it’s what I was taught to do if I lost it.’_

“I suppose it worked,” Hawke shook her head. “When I saw you disarmed, I thought you were going to die.”

_’I’m glad you have confidence in my abilities,’_  Vee remarked dryly. 

Hawke snorted. “Confidence doesn’t come into it. Anyone with just a dagger in the thick of things is in trouble,” she looked away, glancing up into the sky. “Just… do me a favour and don’t bring both Varric and the elf girl along at the same time. You need a strong frontline, and you can’t do that with two archers,” a melancholy smile played across her face. “I had the same problem with Varric and Sebastian, and I wear much heavier armour than you.”

_’How did you meet him? S e b a s t i a n?’_

Hawke’s eyebrows rose. “You know, hardly anybody asks me that. It’s always ‘the champion and the prince’, never mind that it was years before I earned that title, or he his,” Hawke rubbed her jaw. “We met while he was having an argument with grand cleric Elthina, may she walk with the Maker. I ah… I may have accused him of being disrespectful blasphemer. That took a while to smooth out."

Vee found herself grinning crookedly.  _’Not love at first sight, then?’_

Hawke barked a laugh. “Maker, no. As I remember it, we were at each other’s throats for some time. We kept glaring at each other from across the chantry during ceremonies, like a pair of children. Never could have dreamed that I’d wind up marrying the man.”

_’What brought you together, then?’_

The fond smile dropped from Hawke’s face in an instant, a shadow falling across her face. “I don’t care to talk about it.”

_Forlorn. Failure. I let her down. I couldn’t save her._

Vee swallowed.  _’I didn’t mean to pry.’_

Hawke sighed heavily. “Sebastian would tell me that I need to work on my social graces,” she scooped up a handful of sand, holding it out, allowing it to trickle through her fingers. “I don’t like talking. Bethany, my sister, was always the talker, always thinking about others. I see solutions and I take them, and I worry about whether or not they were right afterwards. Proposing to Sebastian is one of the times it actually worked out. As for the others…” Hawke gave a slow shrug, opening her hand to let the sand drift away. “I’ve been doing it for too long to change.”

_’I’m…’_  her signs were slow, tentative.  _’I’m just… struggling to figure out how I feel about someone, and I thought you might…’_

Hawke studied Vee, as if trying to work out if she was making fun of her. At last she sat back. “I might have some insight? Oh, Vee. I barely know how I fell in love, let alone being qualified to give advice.”

  
_’Oh. Sorry.’_

Disappointment hit her and she looked down to the ground. She’d been meaning to ask Hawke something along these lines for a while, being the only person who Vee knew on a better than passing basis who was in a committed relationship. She figured that if anyone would be able to explain the emotional entanglements, it would be the person who was married.

When Vee looked up again, Hawke eyes were still intently watching her. 

“Can I ask you something, instead?” she said at length. Vee nodded.

“Do you think about them when you lay awake at night? Do you wonder what they’re doing now, and if they’re safe and healthy? Do you think about what they’d do if they knew the things you’d gone through today? Do you worry for them, even though you know perfectly well that they should be safe and sound, but maybe they won’t be, just because you’re not there?”

Vee’s hands were still, her throat was dry. Hawke twisted, shrugging her knapsack from her shoulder, opening it to reveal that it was filled with stacks of paper, bound with string.

“Would you write a letter to them every day, just to make sure they know you’re thinking of them? Just to be able to read their words to keep you company, when they aren’t here?”

Hawke shut the bag again, reached over, and patted Vee on the shoulder. She climbed to her feet, towering over Vee and gave a gentle nod.

“If the answer is yes, then that’s love.

Good night, Vee.”

 


	24. Chapter 24

“Summoning demons to fight darkspawn. Are they fucking insane?”  
  
Hawke paced up and down like a caged animal, anger written across her features. Dead Wardens were strewn around the area, mages slain by the group, and warriors sacrificed by their own to fuel blood magic. Varric hovered nearby his friend, but said nothing, perhaps sensing that she needed to get the anger out. Cassandra stood as silently and stoically as a statue, though Vee could see the disquiet all over her face. This was troubling in more than a few ways.  
  
Vee felt sick to her stomach. Desperation was not far from despair, and the fear that had been emanating from each of the wardens was an uncomfortable reminder of the twisted future she’d encountered at Redcliffe. More than that though, there was a residual impression of raw Fade, like the sensation of being around a rift, but even more intense. It had to have resulted from the summoning ritual, like a persistent itch in the back of her head that wouldn’t go away.  
  
Was it really any surprise that a spirit from the Fade would react poorly to the veil being ripped so carelessly apart?  
  
“Desperate, I think,” Stroud’s gravelly voice broke the silence. They’d met up with the man en route to his lead, and Vee still wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. Taciturn, yet fierce. There was a sorrowful look on his face as he looked at the bodies of his comrades. “They have allowed their fear to compromise their judgement.”  
  
“Idiots,” Hawke snarled. “Blood magic doesn’t come for free. It’s evil. They’re handing Corypheus their own damn leashes.”  
  
“Blood magic is not intrinsically less moral than any other form of magic,” Solas remarked mildly in that scholarly fashion of his. After what had happened last time, Vee had been taking Vivienne’s advice to ensure to bring a mage along. “It is a tool that can be used for good or for ill.”  
  
Hawke’s face twisted into an ugly expression of rage. “Every blood mage I ever met had their justifications. All of them were full of it. Don’t know why I’d expect any different from an apostate.”  
  
“Your own actions made it perfectly clear how you view mages, Hawke. Tell me, when you slaughtered your way through Kirkwall’s circle, did you stop to investigate which of them were innocent, or did you condemn them to death based merely off of their birth?” Solas’s voice was cold.  
  
Hawke thrust a gauntleted finger towards him. “I’d watch my mouth if I were you, mage,” she growled.  
  
“Why? Do you intend to do the same to me?”  
  
“Enough,” Vee couldn’t raise her volume to even the levels of normal speaking, but her talking out loud was immediately sufficient to give both Solas and Hawke pause. “This doesn’t… help.”  
  
There was a weighty silence.  
  
“Understood,” Hawke turned on her heel and stalked off. Varric shot Vee a pained look, held out a palm, and then hurried after the champion.   
  
Solas gave a quiet sigh. “My apologies. I should not have goaded her in such a fashion.”  
  
“We are allies,” Cassandra finally spoke. “We must make our best effort to cooperate.”  
  
“Yes,” Solas slowly nodded. “You are entirely correct.”  
  
_’She’s had a lot of bad experiences with mages. It clouds her judgement, I think,’_  Vee had spoken a little of this with Varric, but in part, it was just intuition.  
  
Well. No. It wasn’t intuition. Vee knew exactly what it was. Calling the spirit intuition just made her feel a little bit better about that ongoing worry.   
  
“Would that the many were not judged on the actions of the few.”  
  
_’I know, S o l a s. I’m not trying to justify it. But she knew A n d e r s, and she’s religious. I’m not sure I can blame her for being resentful when a mage destroyed her city’s chantry.’_  
  
Vee could remember the outrage and shock she’d felt when she heard about what had happened in Kirkwall. However, now it was one of those odd memories, one that didn’t feel quite like it belonged to her. There had been grief and anger, certainly, but she was detached from them, as if she hadn’t had any stake in the atrocity… which was false. She’d been affirmed, after all. Once again, the emotion felt second hand.  
  
“There’s no time to dwell on this,” Stroud again. “The Wardens must be stopped, whatever their motivations.  
  
We must go to Adamant Fortress.”


	25. Chapter 25

Adamant loomed, as foreboding as any rift.  
  
Vee could taste the rends in the veil, and even the non-mages (and non 'special passengers’), were visibly uncomfortable. The fortress was old, very old; she didn’t doubt for an instant the truth of the claims that many terrible slaughters had taken place there.   
  
And in a few short hours, the Inquisition was going to besiege it.   
  
This went far, far beyond any engagement that Vee had been involved in before. There had been skirmishes, and of course there had been Haven, but this was shaping up to be a full scale  _battle_.  
  
Vee sat in her tent, taking deep breaths. The strategy had already been mapped out, largely by Cullen and his officers, though with input from Stroud, Hawke, Blackwall, Cassandra and Bull, the most experienced soldiers. Vee had attended and proceeded to feel thoroughly out of her depth with absolutely nothing useful to contribute. This kind of planning was beyond her; she didn’t know the first thing about directing troops, and especially not seizing castles. Vee had taken her leave once everything was set, her involvement largely boiling down to ‘find the Warden Commander and convince her to stand down,’.  
  
She was fine with that. It was the rest that concerned her. What if something went wrong? What if she needed to lead troops? What if they were depending on her, and she couldn’t succeed? Vee wasn’t cut out for battlefield leadership; she’d known that since the beginning. Not being able to speak at volume just made the detriment worse. Her vocal exercises were getting better, and she could talk for longer, just not  _loudly_. She was beginning to suspect that normal conversation wasn’t ever going to be possible. Either way, the prospect of being out there fighting, with soldiers’ lives counting on her to pull through…  
  
Her hands were trembling, no matter how hard she tried to still them.  
  
“Vee?” there was a soft voice from the entryway. Cullen. “May I come in?”  
  
She nodded, slowly. He stepped through the tent flap.  
  
“I couldn’t help but notice that you were very quiet during our meeting. Is everything all right?”  
  
Vee looked into his face. Concerned, well-meaning. Her throat worked, and suddenly her eyes were stinging, brimming. “I’m frightened.”  
  
“Maker…” Cullen breathed. “Come here,” he held out his arms, and that was the only invitation Vee needed to bury her face in his shoulder, wrapped in his embrace.  
  
“A little fear is natural,” he said, after a long, comforting silence. “Nobody will think any less of you for being afraid on the eve of battle.”  
  
“I can’t lead… them all… like this…”  
  
“You don’t have to. Your presence alone is an inspiration.  _I_  will be leading the men. Cassandra will be in charge of establishing a foothold on the walls. All you need concern yourself with is getting your group to Clarel.”  
  
Vee lapsed into quiet. She knew well enough that the soldiers rallied around their Inquisitor as a symbol. In the time since she’d been appointed to the role, that had become clear. To them, she was the survivor of the Conclave, conqueror of the Breach, the one who had faced down their enemy and survived. It didn’t matter to them that she didn’t speak. That, in many ways, added to the mystique. It was a masterstroke from Leliana, really – allowing the rumours of her taking a vow to flourish. It made her seem larger than life, more like a hero than just a woman.  
  
It made people forget that she’d yet to see her twenty-first summer.  
  
“They’re counting… on me…”  
  
Cullen’s hand went to the back of her head, and he clasped her tightly to him. “You’re important to them, Vee. But you’ve earned that. You have their admiration because you deserve it.”  
  
A tremor ran through her. Cullen made a quiet ‘ssh’ sound.  
  
“My instructors always told me to use my fear, harness it as motivation. ‘If you are afraid’, they would say ‘that’s all the more reason to fight harder to avoid the fear’,” Cullen’s voice faltered. “I ah… I’m not sure how helpful that is as advice.”  
  
Vee tried a smile, but it was weak.  
  
“For me... I simply steel my determination for what's to come. Because I know that I must succeed, for those that I care about.”  
  
Vee looked up, and was met with a kiss.  
  
Fear, for a time, did not seem to matter so much.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is the chapter that made me decide to up the rating of the fic to mature. There's some unpleasant subject matter in here and it might be uncomfortable for some people. I'll go right ahead and put out a trigger warning for allusions to losing a child. We Fadin' now.

_Floating. Familiar?  
  
Fade.  
  
Drifting thoughts and feelings, ephemeral.  
  
Indistinct at the edges, real only when thoughts are given to making it real.  
  
Spirits and demons and magic and the twisting, turning passages of objects both present and not.  
  
I’ve been here before._    
  
Vee pried her eyes open, knowing where she was before she even looked.  
  
The Fade wasn’t something easily forgotten.  
  
She looked around. Last she recalled, she was in the process of falling from a collapsed battlement, ripped asunder by a spell from Warden Commander Clarel, a defiant attempt to defeat the huge dragon that had begun attacking Adamant. Vee remembered desperately trying to use the mark as she plummeted through the air, the crack of a rift opening, and then…  
  
Here.  
  
Vee breathed a sigh of relief as she caught sight of the others. When they’d all fallen, she’d feared the worst. But no, there was Solas, fascinated, Bull, disquiet, Varric, checking over Bianca, Hawke helping Stroud onto his feet.   
  
“That was… interesting. What now?” said Hawke.  
  
“I would suggest we make haste to find an exit. The demon they were attempting to bring through the rift will not be far,” Solas frowned. “I do not doubt that it is extremely powerful. We should be cautious.”  
  
“For once we agree.”  
  
The group began to move. Vee remained in place, staring at her hands. They felt strange. It reminded her of how she’d been right after falling from a rift at the Conclave. Heavy, clumsy. Like she was wearing invisible chains. Confined.  
  
Solas noticed first, turning around, worry flashing across his features. “Vee, we cannot tarry.”  
  
And then she heard it. Loud. Distinct. Solas’s voice. His feelings, his thoughts. His mouth was not moving, but it rang from inside of her head. Clearer than she’d ever heard another emotion, even stronger than Cullen’s affection.   
  
_Unease. Understanding. How will she react to the Fade? How will she cope?_  
  
Vee swayed unsteadily, and then nodded, the motion so slow it was like she was wading through mud.   
  
Faltering, she started to put one foot in front of the other.  
  
-  
  
“Let me get this straight. Not only are we in the Fade, but the dead – very dead former Divine is floating around giving us advice,” Varric shook his head. “Sorry Paws, but I think that Squeaks might just have beaten you for weird as hell adventures.”  
  
“Oh no. My most treasured accomplishment,” Hawke remarked, deadpan.   
  
A rumbling sound echoed through what passed for the ground here.  
  
“Aw shit. What the hell was that?” Bull had been miserable from the start. Things didn’t seem likely to pick up anytime soon.  
  
“At a guess, the Nightmare Justinia spoke of,” Solas said grimly.  
  
Hawke drew her sword. Vee bit her lip and went for her daggers, fingers fumbling, nearly slipping straight off the grip. After a longer time than it should have taken, she held both. Around her, the others readied themselves.  
  
“Let’s move,” she whispered. Here in the Fade, with no other noise to drown her out, it could have been a shout.

Nothing here made sense, in a way that made a distressing amount of sense. The angles curved too far, objects looked bigger than they were, and then smaller. Something as simple as a footstep turned into a trial as the very ground seemed to retreat from the boot as it was planted. More discomfiting than any of this was the fact that this… didn’t really bother her. She adapted without even thinking about it, like it was the most natural, familiar environment possible.  
  
That state of placidity came to an end as a voice rumbled through the air.  
  
Elven language was as much as Vee could determine, though from the tone, she knew it couldn’t be anything good, a deep, sinister rumbling. It culminated with a ‘Solas’.  
  
Her friend’s head snapped up. His eyes narrowed, and he responded, also in elven.  
  
“It means to taunt us,” Solas announced, after finishing. “I imagine it wishes to prey upon our fears.”  
  
Vee looked over to him, raising a questioning eyebrow. He shook his head minutely. Doubtless this wasn’t the time to discuss it.  
  
They pressed onward, fighting their way through… things, apparently different for each of them. Fears given flesh, minor demons, but no less horrifying for all of that. To Vee, they were disembodied faces, crying, wailing, gnashing their teeth. Despair manifest.  
  
And that deep and terrible voice continued to speak, tearing at insecurities, berating Stroud, calling him unimportant and insignificant, targeting Bull, asking what he found so –scary- about the Fade and the demons within, mocking him for being afraid.  
  
“Hawke…” it purred the name.  
  
The woman the name belonged to scowled, the motion tugging at her scars, twisting them.  
  
“They’ll die, you know. Sebastian. Your friends. Everything you touch dies.”  
  
Hawke stopped and glared, swinging her blade overhand and –to Vee’s eyes, bisecting a floating face with ease. “You’ll have to do better than that, demon.”  
  
“Carver. Your mother. Even sweet, sweet Bethany. What was it you said? That you needed her, in those deep roads? Such a shame you simply couldn’t bring yourself to trust an elven mage. Your sister would still be alive.”  
  
The defiance seemed to drain out of Hawke in an instant. She lowered her sword, as if it were suddenly a great weight.  
  
“Don’t listen to him, Paws,” said Varric, but his voice was hoarse, weak. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”  
  
Hawke’s form shook, and Vee couldn’t tell if it was in rage or sorrow, the outpouring of intense  _emotion_  so powerful as to be overwhelming to Vee’s ‘senses’. Grief. Raw and abiding.   
  
“I made her come,” Hawke said dully. “We needed a mage, and I made her come, because I was suspicious. Of Merril, of all people.”  
  
“You trusted your sister more than someone you’d just met, Paws! You didn’t kill her!”  
  
“Oh but she knows better, Varric. She knows she doesn’t deserve a family. She knows what happens when she dares to think differently.”  
  
_Agony. Anguish. I’d had such hope. I’d convinced him to try._  
  
Vee’s stomach sank, and she started as she caught sight of Hawke’s eyes glistening. That didn’t seem possible. Not tears. Not from her.  
  
“Adain,” Varric again. Urgent now, and for the first time Vee could remember, angry. “ _Adain_. It wasn’t your fault. Are you hearing me? It  _wasn’t your fault_.”  
  
“He wouldn’t even look at me, after. It took so long to persuade him and, and then…”  
  
Hawke’s head was bowed, shoulders trembling.  
  
“Sebastian loves you, Adain! He married you, didn’t he? One day, you’ll have another chance, and the first time- it doesn’t make you any less of a mother!”  
  
Hawke jolted, as if struck. Vee’s heart keened with sympathy, feeling Varric’s sadness, along with his friend’s. That was… that was just…  
  
Slowly, Hawke raised her head. Wetness streaked both cheeks, but her jaw was set, her eyes dark with fury. “I’m going to find this Nightmare, and I’m going to kill it. And I’m going to make sure it hurts.”  
  
“Hawke,” Stroud took a step towards her. “Are you going to be-“  
  
She fixed him with a look. “I’m going to kill this thing,” she repeated, shouldering past Bull and forging up the next pathway.

By the time they caught up to her, Hawke was already surrounded by a mass of dead or dying fearlings, torn apart by the unstoppable, berserk whirlwind of her greatsword. She’d cut through them like they weren’t even there, and was showing no signs of stopping, hacking and slashing, even as they – at least to Vee – seemed to swarm about her in a mass of weeping faces, some swelling, growing bigger. Feeding off the grief?  
  
It was academic. Hawke was like a woman possessed, mowing them down without pause for breath or respite. Varric started to pick out targets with Bianca, but before Vee and the others even reached their companion, Hawke had already slashed a bloody swathe through the horde, clearing a pathway onward.  
  
The scant remainder fell back. Even demons, it seemed, could know fear.  
  
Varric was quickly at Hawke’s side. The two of them exchanged brief nods. Vee approached a moment later, but Hawke had already turned away, looking intently towards the next area of the path, stretching out ahead of them.  
  
“Oh, what have we here? Isn’t this… interesting.”  
  
That voice rumbled out again. Vee, suddenly, was gripped with anxiety.  
  
It had yet to address her.  
  
“It seems we have a foolish little interloper traipsing around in a skin that doesn’t belong to it.”  
  
Solas, walking alongside Vee, suddenly stopped, going ramrod stiff. “Vee. It will say anything to distract you. It is essential that you ignore its words.”  
  
“How … altruistic of you, Hope. Stealing that poor girl’s body. One could almost call it… possession.”  
  
“Solas,” Vee could scarcely manage a whisper. Her entire body felt like it had been plunged into icy water. “What does it mean?”  
  
“So well meaning, Hope. So desperate to help that you claimed not just the physical form, but the identity to go with it. You are a fraud. A lie.”  
  
“Vee, I-“ Solas was faltering. The others were looking at Vee with expressions ranging from disbelief, to horror, to anger. “Vee, you must not pay attention to-“  
  
“But of course, your friend would not mislead you, would he? Not unless he was afraid of what you may become. Not unless he feared what Hope might do, with its very own meat puppet to control.”  
  
_Remorse. Reluctance. I could not tell her. I could not risk it._    
  
Vee’s mouth wouldn’t listen to the commands of her mind. Her hands were shaking too badly to get out the signs that she wanted. To ask Solas what he’d kept from her. To tell the others to keep going, before she went insane.  
  
“Violetta Trevelyan died here. You’re nothing more than a scavenger, a parody playing at life.”  
  
And Vee remembered.

  
  
_Hope drifted along the currents of the Fade, lazily allowing itself to be borne along. Then, a thought, the thought of a dreamer. No, not a dreamer. Closer than that. Realer than that.  
  
‘There must be a way out, there must be, must be…’  
  
Faith. Bright and burning. Hope knew it for what it was; the ideal that it represented. But not a dreamer. A… Fade-walker. A presence inside of the realm of spirits that should not have been possible.  
  
Then quiet. Hope hovered over the Fade-walker, uncertain. Blonde, slim. Very, very real. It was here physically, not because it was dreaming. Its eyes were open. It seemed to breathe. But it did not see Hope. Its thoughts did not move. Not dead, but not entirely alive either.  
  
Could Hope help? Could it restore itself in the Fade-walker?  
  
It reached out and touched.  
  
Something tugged at the edges of its essence. It drew back, or tried to.  
  
It couldn’t. Within was a void, an emptiness that could not be denied, that needed to be filled. The inexorable strength of the pull tugged Hope in, tugged Hope into the places inside of the Fade-walker that had been left barren.  
  
There was a moment of alarm, and then, like stepping from a cliff, Hope fell into darkness.  
  
I am Hope._

 

“Vee,” Bull’s voice was low, almost plaintive. “Please tell me that it’s just fucking with you.”  
  
Vee stared at her hands- the body’s hands. No. No. This couldn’t be- No.  
  
She was her. She was Violetta. She had to be. She had the memories. She had the emotions.  
  
She couldn’t be- she couldn’t  _be_  the spiritual passenger in the back of the head.  
  
She couldn’t be possessing the form of someone else.  
  
Vee looked up, and she caught Solas’s gaze, and she didn’t even need to read his feelings or thoughts, because the profound, overwhelming sorrow in his eyes, the resigned cast to his face. They told her everything that she needed to know.  
  
He’d lied to her.  
  
This  _life_  wasn’t hers. She’d taken it. Instead of helping, she’d stolen.  
  
How was she any better than any monster that climbed through a rift?  
  
“She’s a fucking  _demon_?” Hawke’s tone was disgust, betrayal.  
  
“She is a spirit, and she is keeping Violetta alive! For all intents and purposes, she  _is_  Vee!” Solas sounded pained.  
  
“Is that what we’re calling abominations, these days?”  
  
“Paws. Enough,” though Varric was quiet, he was also firm.  
  
Hawke rounded on him. “You’re sticking up for- for that  _thing_!?”  
  
“I’m sticking up for my damn friend, Adain! I’ve known her for months, and she is the sweetest kid in the sodding world! She goes out of her way to help and protect people. I’ve seen her cry because we took losses battling demons. She isn’t Anders, all right? She isn’t Vengeance!”  
  
Hawke fell back a step from the sheer intensity of Varric’s protest. “But…”  
  
“I know you’re hurting, Adain,” Varric continued, more gently. “I know. But you can’t let that beat you. It wants you distracted and lashing out. Vee’s herself. Not a spirit, not a demon. Her own damn self. We can worry about the details later;  _after_  we get ourselves out of this mess.”  
  
Vee looked unseeing. It all fit together now. The confused state of her memories. The detachment from emotions she’d experienced previously. The thought reading, the empathy. Even the struggles she’d had moving herself around, talking, relearning skills.  
  
Because they’d never been hers in the first place.   
  
She was a thief, a fake, leeching off the recollections and feelings of someone else’s body.  
  
“Varric is right,” said Stroud. “The longer we’re delayed here, the worse the situation at Adamant will become. This isn’t the time.”  
  
“…Fine,” Hawke growled. As was her habit, she simply began walking away.  
  
“This is all so fucking messed,” muttered Bull, striding along after the champion.  
  
Solas’s eyes were on Vee again. He opened his mouth, shut it. Opened it, then his shoulders slumped, and he turned, left. Stroud regarded her for a moment, and then he followed.  
  
_Deceit. Demon. I betrayed them, I-_  
  
A hand laid itself on Vee’s arm.  
  
“It’s okay, Squeaks,” said Varric. “It’s going to be okay. You’re my friend, and nothing any demon says is going to change that.”  
  
_Trust. Truth. I can count on her. I can show faith in her._  
  
Very slowly, Vee nodded.  
  
“Now… what do you say we go let the Nightmare know what we think of it trying to screw with us?”  
  
She nodded again. She didn’t trust her voice. ‘Her’ voice.  
  
Varric moved after the others, and Vee went along with him.

-

 _”Are you really the Divine?”  
  
“No less than your friend is Violetta.”  
  
“That doesn’t answer my question.”_  
  
As if they hadn’t endured enough revelations already, Vee found herself collecting memories that the Nightmare had taken from… ‘her’.  
  
It made the events of the Conclave terribly, horribly clear, and it made Vee sick to her stomach.  
  
Because as she ‘remembered’ walking into that room in the Temple of Sacred Ashes, seeing Corypheus holding the Divine aloft, holding that orb in his hand. As she ‘remembered’ the fierce surge of anger that such a creature would dare assault Most Holy, ‘remembered’ how it felt to pick up the orb, and have the Anchor scorched onto her palm.  
  
Vee knew that it wasn’t her. That Violetta Trevelyan’s voice was strong, her emotions powerful, bottled up rage and resentment, faith burning fervently. She might as well have been a different person.  
  
Which she was. Because Vee was an imposter.  
  
As if it wasn’t enough that her receiving the Anchor in the first place had been an accident, it wasn’t even Vee’s accident. No, a different mishap entirely had led to where she was now, a spirit steering a body around. The Fade felt more… tangible, more familiar, the more she thought about it. She’d lived here, or perhaps ‘resided’ would be a more accurate term, because Hope hadn’t been truly alive or dead.  
  
‘Before’ was still hard to properly conceive of. Her form had been so holistically different, had functioned in a completely opposite way. She’d had this shape for a long time, or at least, longer than she’d ever retained a shape.  
  
It had changed her. She was Hope… but something else, too.  
  
Solas couldn’t, or wouldn’t meet her eyes. Bull kept stealing glances at her, as if gauging whether she was going to grow claws and try and rip him to shreds. Hawke’s gaze just bore straight through her. Were it not for Varric’s presence at her side, Vee might have screamed.  
  
They walked in silence now. No discussion, no complaints, no wondering where the winding pathways through the Fade may lead. Nobody was much in the mood to talk.  
  
And then, as a tunnel opened up ahead of them into a broad, clear area, there was the Nightmare. Above, a huge, grisly visage, all eyes and mouths, all of them wailing. A conglomeration of faces merged together in abject misery. In front, a smaller demon, resembling the magister in frame, but a spider in profile.  
  
As one, the group charged.

  
  
_Justinia, or the spirit resembling her, plunging headlong into the gigantic, looming figure, driving it back.  
  
Hawke surging forward with a roar, assaulting the smaller demon with white hot fury.  
  
Varric, cranking back Bianca and launching bolt after bolt.  
  
Solas, bathing them all in protective energies, spiritual power that felt at once comforting and familiar, and frightening for being such.  
  
Stroud, lunging with his blade, batting aside the demon’s blows with his shield, jaw set grim and determined.  
  
Bull, throwing in alongside Hawke, their two huge weapons carving great arcs through the air.  
  
Vee, fading into the background and knowing when to thrust with her daggers, knowing when she was out of sight.  
  
And knowing just where to slam her blade into the back of the Nightmare’s head to cause it to screech with agony and collapse._

 

“There it is!” called Solas. “That must be the exit to the rift!”  
  
The party dashed towards the glowing portal, nursing wounds both physical and mental. One of Bull’s arms hung limply at his side, sheathed in blood. Varric’s shoulder bore the marks of claws. Hawke’s face was nightmarish – her scarred cheek had been ripped open again, flesh ragged and torn.  
  
There was a rumbling roar, and the huge demon loomed back into view. Scorched from its contact with the Justinia-spirit, but very much alive, and very much bearing down upon them.   
  
The realisation was swift, and it spread throughout the group without even needing words.  
  
It was moving too fast. Unless it was delayed somehow, then it was going to intercept them before they could escape.   
  
“Varric.”  
  
Vee’s voice was strong, louder than she could ever remember it being.  
  
“Tell Cullen I love him.”  
  
Vee turned, drawing both blades, and ran.  
  
“Squeaks!”  
  
_Avenged. Absolution. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I wasn’t real._  
  
The Nightmare hung above, its many maws gaping, opening into yawning chasms of nothingness. Her feet pounded against the ethereal ground, gaining momentum until she was practically a blur of motion.  
  
It consumed fear. It drew strength from the insecurities and worries and others.  
  
It was the opposite of Hope. It was the opposite of… her.  
  
Maybe this would go a little way towards paying back what she’d stolen.  
  
“VEE! YOU CANNOT!”  
  
_Panic. Plea. We must not lose the anchor. We must not lose her._  
  
A physical force, a lasso of energy seized Vee around the chest, snapping her backward, her own speed causing her to be thrown from her feet.  
  
She slammed to the ground, twisted back.  
  
Solas had his hands out, wreathed with magical power, binding her, holding her in place.  
  
No no no. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do this to her.  
  
He had to let her try. They had to  _leave_  or the Nightmare was going to kill them. Better Vee than a living breathing person, better a spiritual doppelganger than… than her friends.  
  
“Let me go!” it was raw, nearly a scream, feeling like blades scraping the inside of her throat to shout.  
  
She struggled, trying to make it back to her feet. Solas’s magic restrained her, as sturdy and restrictive as any physical rope. Vee forged forward, pressing against the spell, trying to step towards the Nightmare. Couldn’t he see that if she didn’t do this, then they were going to die?  
  
A pair of huge arms grabbed her from behind, crushing Vee against heavy armour in a vicelike grip. Hawke.  
  
And then a figure, greataxe raised high, charged past them.  
  
“Bull!”  
  
Hawke started dragging Vee backwards. She strained, struggled with all her might, thrashing this way and that, trying to squirm free. Hawke held on grimly, tenaciously, even as Vee screamed wordlessly.  
  
Ahead of them, Bull was making a beeline for the Nightmare.  
  
“Don’t worry, Vee!” he called over his shoulder. “I got this!”  
  
_Rage. Reaver. I’m taking this guy out. I’m doing this, or dying trying.  
  
Horns.  
Up._  
  
“BULL!”  
  
As Vee was pulled through the portral, the last thing she saw was Iron Bull laying into the enormous beast with his axe, a war cry on his lips.


	27. Chapter 27

He was gone.  
  
Bull was gone, and everything was screwed up.  
  
The surviving Wardens had laid down their arms, some of them even, apparently, assisting in fighting off the demons that their comrades had summoned.   
  
Vee couldn’t even bring herself to look at them. Stroud was in the process of tiredly rallying them, organising them into details to help the wounded, secure the fortress alongside the Inquisition. It barely seemed to matter. What was the point?   
  
She was a fake, and her friend was dead.  
  
Everything felt numb. What she’d done, well-meaning or no, went against everything that she stood for.  _Had_  stood for. Just as difficult to determine was what she  _was_  now. She remembered being Hope, she remembered the Fade, but the memories were indistinct and strange, abstract in a way that she couldn’t properly grasp. There had been a whole set of different senses and sensations before she’d had a body, and now that she did, it was like she’d forgotten how that all worked.   
  
Nor was she Violetta. It didn’t matter that she could remember so much of that person’s life, that she thought of herself as Vee, she, her. It didn’t matter that she still felt the emotions attached to those recollections. They weren’t  _her_  memories. They weren’t  _her_  emotions. She was no more Violetta than learning the Chant of Light and reading about history made her Andraste.  
  
The realisation hit her.  
  
 _”You’re like me. No, close. It’s tangled, twisted, teasing, torturing…”_  
  
Cole. That strange, odd boy. The spirit in the shape of a boy that had seemed to look through her, find some unknowable insight in what he saw.  
  
He’d been telling her all along, and she just hadn’t understood him.   
  
Despondent, Vee sank to the ground, sitting right in the middle of Adamant’s courtyard, just a few metres away from where they’d stepped out of the rift. Or, more accurately, where she’d been bodily dragged out of the rift. She’d struggled and scrapped with all her might, but Hawke had been too strong for her, keeping a firm hold all the way out of the Fade. That couldn’t have looked good, seeing her manhandled like that, but Vee was finding it difficult to care. What did appearances matter when hers wasn’t even real? How could she fret about how the Inquisition would regard her when her friend was gone, when another so-called friend had actively caused it to happen by holding her back?   
  
Solas had hovered nearby briefly, but hastily made his excuses and left. Vee could feel guilt emanating from him, but that scarcely made her feel any better. She didn’t want him to feel bad. She wanted him to have not lied to her in the first place. Hawke had stayed long enough to discuss the plan of action with Stroud, and then left, saying something about finding someone to stitch her face back together.  
  
That left only Varric, standing alongside her in silence, simply resting a hand on her shoulder. His presence was a comfort, if only a small one.  
  
“Violetta!”  
  
Moving across the courtyard, battered, bruised, and blood-spattered, was Cassandra. Her movements were a little laboured, and a dark stain to the side of her abdomen betrayed injury, but her back was straight and her stride sure. She quickly closed the distance, giving Vee a somewhat-uncharacteristic smile.  
  
“When I saw that dragon, I feared the worst. I am glad that you remain safe,” Cassandra studied them both for a moment. “I heard from the soldiers that you emerged from another rift. What happened?”  
  
“Oh, you know, Seeker,” Varric forced a smile. “Just a quick jaunt through the Fade. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Varric, be serious…” Cassandra trailed off, studying his expression. “You’re being serious. Maker, the Fade again?”  
  
“I admit, I’ve had more fun field trips. Less demon-filled ones, too.”  
  
“I think we have all had quite enough demons for one day. The fighting on the walls was fierce, but we were able to break the Wardens’ lines,” Cassandra shook her head. “We can only hope that preventing more demons being summoned was worth the cost.”  
  
“We lost Bull,” Vee rasped. What little stamina and strength she’d had in her voice had been thoroughly exhausted by the effort of raising it. Even to talk felt like she was swallowing glass.  
  
Cassandra’s eyes widened. “You- how… how did it happen?”  
  
“Tiny stayed behind to cover our escape,” said Varric heavily. “There was a huge demon. Brave bastard just threw himself right at it. He was still swinging when we left. Maybe he made it out?”  
  
Vee knew that instantly for what it was. A vague, vain hope. Clutching at straws.  
  
“He… he was a good man. He… he would have wanted to go down fighting,” Cassandra managed, but all the wind had been taken out of her sails. The victory was a bitter one.  
  
“There’s something else,” Vee’s voice was low, dull.  
  
“Vee,” said Varric. “You don’t have to-“  
  
“I’m not… really me.”  
  
She refused to conceal this. She refused to make it into another lie. If Vee didn’t tell anyone, letting it remain a secret between those who had passed through the Fade, then she was no different from a demon, taking something that didn’t belong to her then claiming that it was hers all along.   
  
She didn’t want to be a demon.  
  
Cassandra’s brow furrowed. “I do not follow your meaning.”  
  
“Violetta died. At the… Conclave.”  
  
“…I hardly think that this is an appropriate time to be joking around, Violetta.”  
  
“She’s…” Varric sighed. “She’s not kidding, Seeker. She’s a spirit. Chuckles confirmed it.”  
  
Cassandra stared at the two of them, looking back and forth, as if not entirely sure whether they were engaged in some kind of elaborate ruse. “Like Cole?”  
  
“Yes-“  
  
“No.”  
  
Varric looked at her sharply. “Squeaks…”  
  
“I’m. Not. Lying.”  
  
He held up both hands. “All right. Your call.”  
  
“I… took Violetta’s body. Used it… to walk,” Vee winced, hand going to her throat. She was just growing more and more hoarse, but she had to persevere. “-Walk out of… the Fade… I thought… I was her.”  
  
Cassandra, for a few seconds, just looked at her. And then her face crumpled.  
  
“You’re possessed?” she whispered.  
  
 _Disbelief. Devastation. This cannot be. This isn’t possible._  
  
Vee swallowed, found her eyes welling up, brimming. She nodded.  
  
“I… I see,” Cassandra rubbed an arm across her forehead. “We will need to discuss this further at Skyhold. For now, Violetta I…” the Seeker bit her lip, trailing off. However, when she resumed, it was with the same conviction she held in everything else. “I am going to have to place you under guard.”  
  
“Are you out of your mind, Seeker!?” Varric exploded. “Vee’s not a danger! For Andraste’s sake, would she have  _told_  you, if she was going to do the whole ‘evil demon’ thing? If Chuckles and Tiny hadn’t stopped her, she’d have been the one that got left behind!”  
  
“It’s just a precaution,” Cassandra sounded tired, hurt. “And I am talking about my own supervision. Not chains, not soldiers. Only myself. There are risks we should not take needlessly.”  
  
“I don’t believe this,” Varric’s fists were clenched. “This is our leader we’re talking about, in case you’ve forgotten. You know, the person we  _need_  to close rifts? The person-“  
  
“Varric… it’s okay,” croaked Vee. “Cassandra’s right… This needs addressing.”  
  
Varric’s shoulders slumped, defeated. “Just… take it easy on her, Seeker. I already lost one friend because of this place.”  
  
“I have no intention of being rough. Violetta, if you step this way, we have set up a field triage. You have injuries that should be attended to.”  
  
Wearily, Vee nodded, rising to her feet and beginning to limp after Cassandra. She tried to give Varric a smile of reassurance, but couldn’t even muster it.   
  
His concern was palpable, even as they left him behind.


	28. Chapter 28

Hawke was at the aid station as they arrived, being treated by a severe-looking dwarf. The woman’s face was an impassive mask, even as the chirurgeon’s needle was stitching it back together. With the blood cleaned away, the wound looked even worse than it had done previously. By the time it healed, that side of Hawke’s face was going to be little more than a network of scars.  
  
She barely looked up, but Vee could feel those dark eyes watching her as Cassandra steered her to a block of fallen stone, large enough to sit on. Vee had found herself deteriorating rapidly now that the adrenaline had worn off, and taking stock of her condition had brought the realisation that she’d been injured in several places; she’d reopened the wound on her forearm, suffered a heavy blow to the lower back, and had lacerations covering half of her left leg. She was also the owner of multiple small gashes in her arms and back. She’d struggled so hard against Hawke’s grip that she’d drawn blood on the other woman’s armour.   
  
Hurt radiated off of Cassandra. She wouldn’t let it show, not after the initial shock had passed, but the news had shaken her to the core. Travelling through the Fade, the revelation… they had put Vee more in touch with her spiritual side than ever before. Her only side, she supposed. It was strange to think that feeling the thoughts and emotions of others was less having a passenger in her mind and more that she had an extra sense that she’d forgotten how to use.  
  
Maker above, Vee had preferred it when her worry had been that a spirit was exerting undue influence over her. That she  _was_  the spirit and what’s more, that her influence had spread to the extent that the original existed only in memories…  
  
Just thinking about it made her feel ill.  
  
Vee couldn’t decide whether or not it was a relief that Cassandra elected to remain silent. They’d developed an understanding of late, a far cry from the tumultuous suspicion of their first meeting, fostered especially by the events at Redcliffe, allowing Vee insight into just how much Cassandra believed in her and their cause. They’d become closer since then, friendly, even. Now, all of the barriers were back up, and Vee could feel them as an almost physical presence between them both.  
  
A desperate, despondent part of her wanted to attempt to explain, tell Cassandra that she had never meant to lie, that she hadn’t even been aware that there was something amiss. Or at least, unaware that what was amiss extended to this far of an extreme. Another part felt that trying to make excuses wasn’t worth it, that indeed she didn’t deserve to make that kind of protest. Unawares or no, she’d been deceiving Cassandra and the rest of the Inquisition for months on end, masquerading as something, someone that she wasn’t.  
  
A liar wearing a friend’s face. She could scarcely blame anyone for wondering if the friendship itself had been false.

In time, one of the field medics, a cheery woman who couldn’t have been a day over eighteen bustled over to Vee and began to assess her wounds. Her little sympathetic noises and excited, inane chattering felt entirely incongruent to the gravity of recent events, and Vee found herself tuning it out entirely. Perhaps the sole positive of her difficulties with speech was that she had ample excuse to abstain from conversation if she didn’t feel like it. Right now the last thing she wanted to do was to try and make small talk with a starstruck teenager.  
  
Vee was wincing with discomfort from having the blood-soaked leg of her pants cut away when she realised that someone was hovering over her. Diverting her attention from the mess of cuts for a moment, Vee glanced up and saw Hawke, Cassandra watching from a little way off to the side. The woman’s expression was inscrutable, and Vee couldn’t even determine what she was feeling – she may as well have been carved from stone. It was both impressive and a little intimidating from someone whose face was being held together with thread.  
  
“You look like shit,” Hawke said after a few seconds.  
  
Vee, for several moments, barely stirred. Then, with the slightest tilt of her head, she inclined her eyebrow upward.  
  
Hawke managed a tired smile, though it was immediately replaced by a twitch of pain. “Yeah, and I’m a painting. I know. Wanted to talk with you. Clear the air.”  
  
 _’I’m listening,’_  Vee signed tentatively, though she also gave a warning tilt of the head towards the medic. Some conversations were best not had openly.  
  
 _’I still don’t know what you are,’_  Hawke signed like she spoke, motions clipped and contained.  _’But a demon wouldn’t have done what you did in there. That’s worth something.’_  
  
 _’Thanks. I think,’_  Vee was unsure of this olive branch, as limited as it was. Hawke had never struck her as the type to easily back down from her convictions.  
  
 _’Yeah. Don’t thank me. I’ve had enough of spirits for one lifetime,’_  Hawke eyed her.  _’But this is bigger than just you. Like it or not, you’re needed.’_  
  
 _’Oh. Right,’_  now that was more like the Hawke she’d come to expect.  
  
 _’For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Bull. I know you were close, and he was a damn fine fighter to have watching my back,’_  Hawke glanced down to her hands for a moment.  _’This is where I’m supposed to say that we never saw him go down, but I’m not going to insult his sacrifice like that. He knew the score, and he faced it down like a warrior,’_  there was a slow nod.  _’Like you were going to. Didn’t even think about it.’_  
  
 _’Someone had to,’_  being reminded of Bull opened the wound afresh, raw and rending. He couldn’t really be gone.  
  
 _’Yeah. If S o l a s hadn’t got me to grab you, it might have been me. I would have.’_  
  
Vee didn’t need to be a mind reader to know instantly that the claim was true.  
  
Hawke regarded Vee, again inscrutable.  _’I’ve decided I’m staying,’_  she signed at length.  _’Someone needs to keep V a r r i c out of trouble. And I have unfinished business with a certain magister.’_  
  
 _’We’ll be happy to have you,’_  Vee said, and meant it. The other woman was abrasive, caustic at times, but she’d never felt any true malice from her, and that Varric trusted Hawke so completely was a major point in her favour.  
  
 _’Don’t make too much of it. There’s a lot riding on this. I’m not willing to make the same mistake twice.’_  
  
 _’…Understood.’_  
  
Hawke gave a tiny nod. “I’m going to go find Varric. Make sure he’s okay,” she made to turn away, then hesitated, looked back over her shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Vee. Whatever else happens, don’t lose sight of that. Don’t fuck it up.”  
  
She departed without another word.  
  
Vee looked down to her leg again and gave a tiny hiss of pain as the medic began to clean out the wounds. Apparently, she was lucky that the cuts weren’t any deeper.  
  
Vee sure didn’t feel blessed by good fortune right about now.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry in advance.

Vee  _felt_  him before she ever saw him.  
  
 _Dark. Dread. I must know. I must see for myself._  
  
It wasn’t inaccurate to compare Vee’s current circumstances to house arrest. A watchful and vigilant Cassandra had been hovering over her at all hours of the day, not that she’d much been in the mood to wander around after what had happened. Exhaustion had claimed her not long after her wounds were treated, and she’d eventually collapsed into bed in Adamant’s officers’ quarters. Vee assumed that Cassandra must have slept at some stage, but when she awoke to the morning’s light, the Seeker was up and about, as implacable as ever.  
  
“Let me by, Cassandra.”  
  
Cullen, as if Vee wasn’t already perfectly familiar with what his thoughts sounded like. Vee sat up on the edge of the bed, wincing as the motion sent agony shooting across her form. Her back was an ugly mass of bruises, and she had so many bandages wrapped around her that she felt like she was trialling some new kind of absurd fashion. It sounded like just the type of thing that would take off in Orlais.  
  
“Cullen, I am not sure this is a good time,” Cassandra stood in the doorway, barring entry. Cullen was beyond, looking haggard, unshaven.  
  
“I need to speak with her,” Vee saw Cullen’s jaw working for a moment. “I’ve been informed of what happened. Please, Cassandra. I just need to know that she is all right.”  
  
Cassandra glanced to Vee, questioning. Vee gave a slight nod, and with a sigh, the Seeker stepped aside. “We will be better equipped to resolve this… matter at Skyhold.”  
  
“I know. Thank you, Cassandra.”  
  
Cullen entered the room, his steps slow and tentative. As he laid eyes on Vee, his face faltered with sympathy, but a look of something that Vee couldn’t quite determine passed over his features. His eyes were bloodshot, raw, as if he’d yet to sleep.  
  
He stopped a few steps back from her, seeming to hesitate, posture open, as if meaning to take her in his arms, but hovering at a distance, not closing that gap.  
  
 _Hurt. Harmed. I should comfort her. I should show wariness._  
  
Vee’s heart skipped a beat. The realisation of what expression she’d been struggling to read hit her with all the force of a charging druffalo.   
  
Suspicion.  
  
Cullen’s arms dropped to his sides. “You’re injured,” he said at last.  
  
She tried to smile, tried not to let on how unnerving it was to feel something like that from someone she’d grown so close to.  _’I’d say that I’ve had worse, but that may not strictly speaking be true.’_  
  
Cullen didn’t smile back. He studied her intently for a long moment, brow furrowed. “How are you holding up?” he asked at length. “Losing a comrade is never a pleasant experience.”   
  
There was an odd edge to Cullen’s voice, as if he were expressing the sympathy by rote rather than by conviction.  
  
Vee swallowed, shook her head. Her throat hurt too much to even think about talking out loud. Shouting like that in the Fade could have undone all the work she’d put into rebuilding her stamina.  _’Not good,’_  tears were in her eyes again. She kept looking around for Bull, hunting for that easy smile, ears straining for that hearty laughter. It was hard to imagine that she’d had trouble trusting him. It was even harder to accept his loss.  _’B u l l was scared. Of demons, the Fade. But he didn’t even hesitate. He threw himself in there to make sure that we could get away,’_  Vee’s form tremored, and she felt the tears begin to spill anew.

“His sacrifice will be honoured,” again that strange cadence to his tone. Again that impression of insincerity. For a moment, Cullen swayed forward, looking on the verge of taking a step and embracing her, offering comfort. Then he rocked back again, remained in place.  
  
 _Tears. Torment. Are those real? Are they a clever ploy?_  
  
Her blood ran cold.  
  
Cullen thought she was lying to him.   
  
And she couldn’t even claim that it was without reason. She’d had enough experience of the templars to know what was said about spirits and demons, to have learned the precautions and warnings against them. Cullen had encountered them first hand, and more than once, at that.  
  
 _’I wish there had been another way,’_  and she did, desperately. It should have been her. Solas should have let her at least try to make amends.  
  
“I think we all do, Vee. He’ll be missed.”  
  
Vee tried to stifle the flow of tears with her arm, succeeding only in getting the bandage damp. The wound it was wrapped around hadn’t bled while she was sleeping, at least.  
  
Cullen regarded her silently. His expression was conflicted.  
  
 _Callous. Care. Want to hold her. Want to turn and run and never look back._  
  
“Varric spoke of the… discovery you made,” there was obvious hesitation before he settled on that word as a description. “I find it difficult to believe.”  
  
Vee immediately recognised that for what it was. A plea. He wasn’t truly expressing his opinion, he was asking for a reassurance. He was asking her to tell him that Varric had been mistaken, or that the Nightmare had just been trying to unnerve her.  
  
For a long moment, Vee was tempted, genuinely, to lie. To say that the whole experience was just the Fade getting to her, that the pressure had made her crack, and she’d said a few things that she didn’t mean. That this all was just a huge misunderstanding.  
  
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bring herself to cover the deception with more lies. He meant too much to her to do that.  
  
 _’I’m sorry C u l l e n. It’s true.’_  
  
Cullen’s adam’s apple bobbed.  
  
“I… see.”  
  
 _Betrayed. Bewitched. Was any of it ever true? Was she misleading me from the beginning?_  
  
Almost imperceptibly, Cullen’s expression hardened. “So…” his voice was hoarse. “You’re not a human. You’re something from the Fade.”  
  
It was hard to meet his eyes. Red-rimmed and tired, so very, very tired. Vee forced herself to.  _’It’s difficult to explain. I don’t remember…’_  she groped for a term.  _’Before, very well. But … yes. That’s where I came from.’_  
  
A powerful surge of emotion rippled off Cullen. Hurt, raw and aching, like a dagger in the pit of the guts. He swallowed again, and for a moment, his eyes glistened. He blinked, turned his head away, and when he looked back, any tears were gone. “You’re living in the body of some poor girl.”  
  
Vee flinched. The accusation was laden in his tone, and she had no defence for it. She hadn’t meant to possess anyone, she’d been trying to help, or at least, that’s what she thought, to the best of her recollection. Did the motivation matter more than the result, though? Did good intentions justify her actions?  
  
Slowly, looking up into Cullen’s face, she nodded.  
  
Cullen’s jaw clenched.  
  
“So, the templars. The Trevelyan family. The experiences with the chantry and the sisters. None of that was real.”  
  
His eyes were beginning to blaze with an intensity she’d never seen from him.

 _’It was real. That all happened, it-‘_  
  
“But not to you,” Cullen cut her off. “It happened to Violetta Trevelyan. Not the… spirit inhabiting her body. Those memories aren’t yours. They don’t belong to you.”  
  
 _Thief. Trickster. How could I have let this happen? How could I have been so blind?_  
  
 _’I didn’t know that,’_  Vee said miserably, feeling as if her heart was being shredded into tiny pieces.  _’I wouldn’t have misled people deliberately.’_  
  
“Wouldn’t you?” Cullen’s voice was thick with anger, building within, stoking like a furnace into an unstoppable inferno. “If you could remember the templars, you must have known what they are taught about demons. You would have known that you needed to keep your nature quiet, lest you be sent back to where you came from,” he was beginning to breathe more heavily, more rapidly, visibly struggling to maintain his composure. “Was it  _pleasant_  for you spirit, getting to experience our world through the eyes of another? Did you  _enjoy_  your time befriending us, gaining our confidence? I’m sure you could have continued on quite happily for as long as you pleased, up until one of your own exposed you.”  
  
Vee’s very being ached. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Did he really think of her in this way? Did he really think that she’d lied about everything?   
  
 _’C u l l e n, nothing was- my feelings were always true. I meant everything I ever said to you.’_  
  
“It’s not truth if your entire identity was a falsehood!” Cullen snapped.  
  
 _’But I-‘_  
  
“Speak properly! I know that you can!”  
  
Vee jerked backwards. His words may as well have been a blow to the face. Cullen had never called signing improper before. The fact that he’d gone out of his way to learn it in order to talk with her had been one of the reasons she’d felt so grateful to him, had so sincerely enjoyed his company.  
  
She just looked at him. Looked at him shaking with anger, hurt, betrayal.  
  
“Hope,” he said it like a curse. “That’s what Varric told me you were,” his face twisted into a snarl. “And what is Hope but another form of Desire? Hope too much, and you get greed, you get coveting what isn’t yours, doing anything to gain it.”  
  
A wash of ice flooded through Vee’s gut. Desire. Just the word was immediately abhorrent to her, an intensity of reaction she never would have expected. She knew in an instant that just as dread and fear were opposite to her, so too was desire a corruption of her ideals. For Cullen to even suggest such a thing immediately felt utterly horrific.  
  
 _Deceiver. Disgust. I will not be broken. I will not allow that ever again._  
  
“How long before you planned to make your move, demon? How did you mean to tempt me, get into my head? I trusted you. You acted like an innocent, and like a damn fool I trusted you!” Cullen’s voice broke, and suddenly he was stepping forward, hands seizing Vee by the collar, hauling her slender form upward with berserk strength.  
  
“WHAT WERE YOU PLOTTING!?” Cullen roared, shaking her like a ragdoll. “TELL ME!”  
  
“CULLEN! UNHAND HER THIS INSTANT!”  
  
The deafening shout from the doorway, rivalling Cullen in volume, seemed to startle him out of his fury. He looked at Vee as if seeing her for the first time, and then let go, sending her collapsing back onto the bed. His expression was a mixture of shock and disgust, whether at himself or her she could not tell.  
  
Cassandra was there in an instant, face like thunder. She immediately interjected herself between Vee and Cullen, glaring daggers at him.  
  
“I- forgive me I- I lost control.”  
  
“Return to your duties, Commander.”  
  
“I… yes. That would be best,” Cullen turned away and hurried out without a backward glance.  
  
Cassandra turned to her, expression softening with something like concern.  
  
“Are you hurt?”  
  
Vee shook her head numbly.  
  
“Are you… all right?”  
  
She shook her head a second time.  
  
Nothing was all right.  
  
Not anymore. 


	30. Chapter 30

Three days passed at the pace of a glacier. Intermittent reports filtered their way through to Vee as the Inquisition counted the cost of seizing Adamant and stopping the wardens from flooding the fortress with demons.  
  
It made for grim reading. Casualties had been heavy on both sides, a loss felt all the more keenly for the fact that they should never have been fighting one another in the first place. The sole consolation was that allowing Corypheus’s plot to succeed would have had far more devastating consequences.  
  
Vee remained under guard. Cassandra took shifts with Blackwall, alternating every few hours. The warden couldn’t have looked more uncomfortable if he’d tried, and he pointedly avoided talking to her. Most of the time he wouldn’t even spare a glance in her direction, let alone be drawn on any questions she asked about how the wardens were recovering from Clarel’s desperate plan. Cassandra at least would speak to her, albeit cautious and wary. It wasn’t like there was much else to do in order to pass the time.  
  
Company was few and far between. Other than Varric, who made a point to stop by at least a couple of times a day to make sure she was doing all right (and surreptitiously offer to sneak her out from under Blackwall’s nose, which he rarely appreciated), she’d seen virtually nobody.  
  
Cullen had yet to come anywhere close since their argument.  
  
It hurt to even think about him, immediately recalling every part of his accusations, every part of his anger. He thought her a liar, a demon of Desire, trickster and seducer, and it only compounded her misery. She’d lost her purpose the moment that she entered this body, and knowingly or not, she’d assumed Violetta’s identity. Even now it was almost impossible to think of herself as anything other than Vee. She’d tied herself to the person who had become the Herald, and whether she could be separated, untangled, was something that went beyond her meagre understanding on such matters.  
  
What Vee did know was that she was alone in her head. The original owner was gone, likely for good. She wanted to hope that it wasn’t her that had caused that to happen, but she couldn’t know for certain. It raised the question if spirit could be divorced from body without killing them both. She still had Violetta’s memories and thoughts and feelings… surely the vestiges of a living person were better than none at all?  
  
She shut that thought down. Hard. That was a demon’s way of thinking. That way lay temptation and corruption. Stealing something and then justifying it as preservation… that was avarice, not hope.  
  
There was a knock without, Vee looked up from her desk and Blackwall jumped to his feet like he was on springs, relieved for any opportunity to be up and engaging with something that wasn’t her. They’d never been especially close – there had been the language barrier and he was always so gruff and serious, but Vee at least at trusted him. Now he was treating her like she didn’t exist.

Blackwall opened the door, and the figure standing there stole all the breath from Vee’s chest.  
  
Solas.  
  
“May I come in?”  
  
“I’m not stopping you.”  
  
“I ah… as it happens I was not actually talking to you,” Solas looked past Blackwall meaningfully. The warden grunted.  
  
“I see how my custody is valued.”  
  
Vee hesitated for several long seconds before she eventually nodded.  
  
Solas smiled apologetically at Blackwall, who merely gave a shrug, moving out of the way and heading off to the furthest possible corner of the room. The elf stepped forward, moving over to Vee’s workstation. She’d been drafting a letter to, well, nobody in particular. At current she’d more or less been removed as Inquisitor in all but name.   
  
“Vee,” Solas said eventually.  
  
_’S o l a s.’_  
  
“Are you being treated well? I was concerned for you.”  
  
Vee brushed straight past the question. She’d never been one for beating around the bush. The real Vee hadn’t, anyway.  
  
_’You lied to me.’_  
  
Solas winced. “That is correct,” he conceded after a moment.  
  
_’Why?’_  
  
He hesitated. “I was trying to protect you.”  
  
_’From what? The truth?’_  
  
It was a force of effort to keep her hands steady. She was indignant, angry and upset all at once. He’d been keeping this from her since the beginning, since they first discussed the nature of her ability to hear thoughts and sense emotions. If remembering the strange sensation of concealment wasn’t enough, there was his reaction to the Nightmare in the Fade; he’d known what it had been about to say.  
  
“From how others may have reacted. From how you yourself may have reacted.”  
  
_’And this is better?’_  incredulous.  
  
“I- well, no,” Solas sighed. “Vee, I did not conceal this because I wanted it to be revealed so traumatically. I kept it secret because we were surrounded by devout Andrastians, mages, and templars. What is happening now is precisely what I feared would happen. Do you suppose that they would have been kind enough to place only a single guard on you back when you were a suspect in the Divine’s murder? Had they known, you would have been slain immediately.”  
  
It made sense, and she hated that it made sense. She wanted to be angry, she wanted to be able to lash out and rail against him and shout. That he had a reason made that a lot harder.  _’And you couldn’t have told me in private? I like to think that this is the type of thing I would be able to keep to myself.’_  
  
Solas shook his head. “I could not risk it. You were- are – a spirit inhabiting a physical form for the first time in your existence. At first, there was no telling how much of your identity remained intact. When it became clear you had retained memories from… your body, I could not be certain how you would react to the news. You believed yourself to be Violetta. Informing you otherwise could have changed you, altered your nature. I did not want to see that.”   
  
_’I didn’t want my best friend to lie to me,’_  Vee said bitterly.  _’And yet here we are.’_  
  
_Surprise. Shame. She considers me her friend. She considers us close._

 _’Yes, S o l a s. I do. You taught me how to talk again, remember?’_  
  
Solas started in alarm, staring at her for a second. “You read my thoughts.”  
  
_’Emotions. Close enough. It’s not that different from C o l e.’_  
  
“No. I imagine that it is not,” he paused, contemplating her. “You have spoken of this before, but this is the first time you have responded quite so distinctively. How long have you been capable of such clear reckoning?”  
  
_’I heard things clearly a few times. Like the first time I spoke to you about it, when I heard C u-‘_ she couldn’t bring herself to even say his name.  _’When I heard someone think. Since the Fade, it’s become a lot clearer.’_  
  
“Hm, yes, that would follow. Both exposure to the Fade and your new understanding of your nature would be likely to serve as a focus for your abilities-“  
  
Vee raised a hand. Solas stopped.  _’Don’t change the subject, S o l a s. When I brought that to you, it must have been clear that I was close to working things out. Why didn’t you tell me then?’_    
  
“Because you are Hope,” Solas said, simply.  
  
Vee frowned.  _’That doesn’t make sense.’_  
  
“Does it not? Tell me then, having discovered that this body is not your own, how do you feel about it?”  
  
_’What kind of question is that?’_  Vee snapped aggressively.  _’I’m a fake, and apparently such a good one that I managed to even fool myself into believing it.’_  
  
“Precisely. Your ideals cause this to bring you shame, in spite of it being, I believe, accidental. Hope is a giver, not a taker. Here, Violetta, was my friend, asking me sincerely about herself, and my choices were to inform her that not only are all of her notions about herself wrong, but that she has been acting contrary to her very nature… Or to provide an explanation that is partially accurate, but which omits the parts which I know will be distressing.”  
  
_’So I’m a child who needs to be protected against reality.’_  
  
“A spirit bound and forced to act against its nature will become corrupted into a demon, Vee! Your situation was already unique enough as to challenge my understanding of spiritual bonding, I could not gamble that the discovery would not cause us to lose you!”  
  
_’You mean lose this,’_  Vee held out her marked palm, displaying the Anchor.  
  
“I mean lose my friend, Vee!” Solas paused, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, his face was calmer. “I feared for what may have happened to you. I do not claim that my decision was the correct one, but I do not regret making it.’  
  
She could see the sincerity on his face. Genuine concern.  _’I wish you hadn’t lied to me, S o l a s.’_  
  
“I know, and I am sorry,” Solas rested a hand on her shoulder and Vee didn’t pull away. “I understand if you no longer wish my company, but if you will have me, I will stand at your side until this misunderstanding has been resolved, and beyond.”  
  
Vee found a melancholy, crooked smile on her face.  _’I’d like that.’_  
  
“I am proud to call you a friend, Vee.”  
  
_’Oh you know. I guess someone has to indulge you when you start rambling on about the Fade.’_  
  
She winked. Solas chuckled, and then for the first time in what felt like years, Vee managed to laugh.  
  
She couldn’t claim that things were beginning to look up, but at least she hadn’t lost another friend.


	31. Chapter 31

The journey back to Skyhold started as it meant to go on; awkward, stilted, and tense.  
  
While the precise details had been kept under wraps, it hadn’t escaped the notice of the soldiers that their Herald had not been nearly as visible a figure as normal. Even if Vee wasn’t usually conversing with the soldiers of the Inquisition, she’d always made an active effort to have a presence around their camps, even if that was just being seen. It meant a lot to the troops that their leader – at least in title – was there with them.  
  
The assumption, initially, was that she’d been wounded, which was true enough, but hardly the entirety of the matter. According to Varric, however, rumours had slowly began to circulate as her absence stretched, first that her injuries were severe and then, when any threat to her life was played down, that something had happened to her in the Fade that was necessitating her withdrawal from the public eye.  
  
“I’ll say this much for the rumour mill, Squeaks,” Varric had told her. “Sometimes they manage to get it right by pure fluke.”  
  
Regardless, the members of the Inquisition had already had an inkling that something was up, and Vee’s emergence, Cassandra in close proximity, did nothing to assuage those doubts. She could  _feel_  the mood of those around her. Wondering, worried, unsure of what had happened, of why the Seeker was at her side constantly.  
  
Solas and Varric had both now raised protest at having someone watch Vee like she was a prisoner. Cassandra had stubbornly stuck to her original stance that it was just a matter of taking precautions, though it was clear enough that giving the order had left her conflicted. Often, there was little else for the two of them to do but talk to one another, though Vee’s struggle to maintain speech for long periods and Cassandra’s lack of comprehension of sign language sometimes prevented that. From these discussions it became clear that though the Seeker did not think her to actively be a danger, there was enough of an element of uncertainty that Cassandra had to put the best interests of the Inquisition at heart. Risk prevention.  
  
Blackwall was still obviously unsettled by her presence, though she’d managed to get him to exchange a few words over the course of his watch. She’d gleaned more from ‘listening’ to him, his thoughts lending themselves to the idea that she made him uneasy because she’d been something different from what she’d claimed. For some reason Vee couldn’t quite discern, that hit close to home for the bearded warden.  
  
Vee had grown a little better at controlling her ability to ‘hear’ others, which was a relief. It was distracting in the extreme to constantly be picking up on wandering thoughts from others, and oftentimes it felt like she was intruding. Maybe back when she was just Hope, it might have bothered her less, but if she couldn’t help and couldn’t offer respite, then she just felt like an eavesdropper. Quiet was good. It reminded her of the Fade.  
  
Those memories were vague, more impressions than concrete, clear pictures. She had a much better idea of how the Fade had  _felt_  than how it had actually been to be Hope, which remained a vaguely discomfiting concept. She quite clearly wasn’t the same spirit that she had originally been, so what  _was_  she?  
  
Vee had no answers for that, and neither did Solas.

The opening leg of the trip at least had the consolation that they were finally leaving Adamant. It was an unpleasant and unhappy place, the Veil thin and torn; nobody had enjoyed being there, and Vee in particular had even more reason to be glad to see the back of the place. No more thinking about the Nightmare. No more dwelling on what had transpired with Cullen, and maybe the beginnings of moving on; though that was an uncertain and vague –ha- hope. Even setting aside that she wasn’t really sure if she could ever just forget Cullen’s anger and anguish, there was another trauma that she couldn’t ignore. She missed Bull terribly, missed his company and his personality and just… just everything about him, really. This would have all been a little more bearable with him here; he would have understood, after the initial shock, that she was still herself, still his friend…  
  
Maybe.  
  
Vee didn’t want to twist the knife of his loss even more by contemplating that he may have rejected her too.  
  
It was actually a relief to be back on the Approach. Not the heat, but that one way or another, this was all one step closer to being, if not solved, then at least discussed. The itinerary was to make a stop at Griffon Wing keep and reorganise from there, overseeing a withdrawal of most Inquisition forces from the area now that the bulk of the Venatori threat had been handled. Vee, having gratefully slid from the saddle of her horse, hitching it with the others, took a moment to lean against a wall and sigh. Cassandra was still hovering nearby, but she was at least giving her some breathing space.  
  
“Words clawing inside the head, worries and wrenching and wounds. Truth, tormenting torture. Their eyes are shocked and then pained and that burns worse than cuts.”  
  
“Hello, Cole.”  
  
Vee hadn’t seen where he’d come from, but she’d long since given up on trying work that out. He’d managed to appear out of nowhere even while he was leaning on a long crutch, his leg still splinted stiff and straight.  
  
“It hurt you a lot. I’m very sorry.”  
  
 _’You knew, didn’t you, C o l e? You knew what I was.’_  
  
Cole’s head bobbed for a moment. “Yes. I thought that you did, too. You hear them, you feel, fret, fiercely. You want to reach out to them and make sure that their hopes aren’t vain ones,” a sad look came into his eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you by not saying anything.”  
  
 _’You did try to tell me,’_  Vee signed slowly.  _’You said I was like you.’_  
  
“Yes,” he was quiet, thoughtful. “The real Violetta died, just like the real Cole. But for you, it’s different. You… remember her like you  _are_  her. You believe it so much that it makes you real, too.”  
  
 _’But I’m not, am I? She died and I took her body. I can’t say I’m real when I stole this,’_  
  
“You’re real to Varric. And Solas. You’re real to Hawke, even though she wouldn’t say it. You’re real to a lot of people,” he fell silent, and Vee thought he had finished when he spoke again. “You’re real to Cullen. If you weren’t, then it wouldn’t have hurt him so much.”

Vee felt a lump in her throat.  _’I’d just like to hear his voice again.’_  
  
Cole tilted his head to the side. “Lies, deceit, stabbing at the heart like daggers. Memories of murder and mages and malice, demons assaulting defences, scrabbling for a way in. I will not give up, I will not yield, they will not have me. She is one of them. Maker help me, she is one of them and I fell in love with her, I let her-“  
  
“Please stop, Cole,” a violent tremor ran through Vee’s body. She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to know what Cullen thought of her.   
  
“I’m sorry. I thought it would help if you knew he didn’t hate you.”  
  
It didn’t help. It was just a reminder of the extent of her betrayal, unwitting or no. Cullen’s reaction had been one of broken trust, angry and lashing out. But he’d called her a demon. He believed her a liar and a seducer. Vee could see no path to reconciliation. If Cullen didn’t hate her, that just made it all the more harsh that he’d said what he’d said.  
  
Cole moved forward in a quick hop, crutch clicking on the stone beneath, and then hugged her. It was awkward, his injured leg forcing him to skew slightly to the side, and he held onto like someone who wasn’t quite sure how hugs were supposed to work.  
  
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said quietly. “I didn’t see that it was wrong to kill the mages in the Spire to try and free them. You didn’t  _know_  that you weren’t the real Violetta. You were trying to help. You did help, more than you hurt.”  
  
Vee, in a jerky motion, hugged him back, starting to tremble slightly.  
  
“You’re afraid that you’re a demon. You’re not,” he paused, glanced down at her. “If you were, then I would kill you, I promise.”  
  
In spite of herself, Vee laughed. Short, truncated, and without much enthusiasm, but a laugh, nonetheless. “Thanks. I think.”  
  
“The Iron Bull would have killed you too.”  
  
Vee’s breath hitched. Cole continued on in that dreamlike manner of his.  
  
“Fade, fearsome, failure. I don’t want to be here, I shouldn’t be here. Disbelief, doubting, demon, distrust, but look at her face. She believes it, it’s true. Vashedan. It’s true.”  
  
“Cole, I don’t want to hear-“  
  
He pushed on, heedless. “Watch her, watch her hands, watch her face. She’s distressed, despairing. She didn’t know. She didn’t lie, she isn't a demon,” Cole’s embrace tightened. “He did what he did because he didn’t want you to die.”  
  
Trembling, shivering, Vee held Cole until Cassandra came over and said that they needed to head to their quarters.


	32. Chapter 32

Sera didn’t take the news well.  
  
She stared at Vee, and a myriad of emotions went across her face.  
  
They settled on confused disquiet.  
  
“That’s not funny. Don’t make jokes about this kind of thing, yeah?”  
  
Vee told her that it wasn’t. Sera stared again.  
  
“No, no, no. Don’t – if you’re that, then you’re not Andraste’s doodle-whatsit prophet. You’re a thing. From out there,” vague pointing above her own head. “You’re messing with me, right?”  
  
Vee shook her head.  
  
“Ffffffffffffuck,” Sera hesitated, and then elected to repeat the curse again for emphasis. “Fuck!”  
  
“I didn’t know.”  
  
Sera scowled. “That’s a pile of piss. You don’t just  _not know_  that you’re a … spooky magic thing.”  
  
The elf was hurt and angry at the same time – Vee could see both.  
  
 _Lied. Lost. She’s my friend. She’s… something else._  
  
“The memories weren’t there.”  
  
Sera frowned, and then threw up both hands. “This is stupid! It’s all stupid!” Sera pointed at Vee. “You just… you… don’t talk to me!” she stormed off, muttering darkly under her breath.  
  
Vee couldn’t look up from the ground for a long while after that.  
  


* * *

  
  
Vivenne, if at all possible, was even worse than Sera.  
  
Her expression was immediately cold, distant.  
  
“While I appreciate the honesty, my dear, this has rather severe implications.”  
  
Vee’s head drooped. “I know,” she said, softly.  
  
“By all conventional understanding, a demon inhabiting the body of another is an abomination.”  
  
She flinched. “I’m not a demon,” there was as much a plea as an assurance.  
  
“I’m afraid I can’t take your word for that, darling.”  
  
Vee hugged her arms to herself, trying not to let anything show on her face. Not in front of Vivienne, dignified, razor sharp Vivienne, whom she’d come to understand wasn’t all that much like her mother after all. There was kindness, beneath the poised exterior, genuine care.  
  
She must have failed, because momentarily, the enchanter’s expression softened. “For the little it’s doubtlessly worth, I shall be hoping for a resolution. The situation is an unusual one; perhaps the demon’s hold on you can be broken.”  
  
It felt like a punch to the gut. Vee looked at Vivenne and then simply turned away. There was no hold to sever. She was not separate from herself, there was no consciousness that was being suppressed. With ‘her’ gone, as hard as it was to conceive of a ‘her’ that was distinct from the body, the shell that was Violetta Trevelyan may as well have been a puppet with the strings cut.  
  
But maybe that was the point. For Vivienne, better dead than dancing like a marionette.

* * *

  
  
At one stage, Vee ran into Cullen while filling her canteen at a river, being bumped into from behind as she rose up from the river bank.  
  
“My apologies, I didn’t… see you… there.”  
  
Cullen trailed off as their eyes met. There was a silence, each second of it seeming to stretch for an eternity.  
  
“Inquisitor,” he said stiffly.   
  
“Cullen,” she murmured back.  
  
“I… trust you are well?”  
  
Vee shrugged, then shook her head. There wasn’t much point trying to conceal her emotions from Cullen, not when simply being near him caused a keening pain in the centre of her chest.  
  
“I see,” Cullen hesitated, opened his mouth, then shut it again. He gave a formal nod. “I should… return to my duties.”  
  
He turned, left. Vee watched him depart, and it was all she could do not to beg him to come back.  
  


* * *

  
  
Dorian listened quietly to the explanation, and then sat back, stroking his chin.  
  
“Now isn’t that fascinating!”  
  
Vee blinked, giving the mage an incredulous look.  
  
Dorian quirked an eyebrow. “Not the reaction you were expecting, I take it? If you like, we could go back and start again. I’ll put on an appropriately appalled face.”  
  
“I thought… I thought you’d be upset.”  
  
Dorian frowned. “Whyever would I be-” he stopped, comprehension dawning, then sighed. “I see. I imagine some of our friends haven’t been taking this with very much grace.”  
  
Vee shook her head, trying not to let it show on her face how much that hurt.  
  
“Look, there’s no denying that you’re an odd sort, Violetta, but you’re  _our_  odd sort. If we can all learn to put up with Cole and his habit of rifling through everyone’s memory drawers, we can certainly put up with our fearless leader having a little more to her than meets the eye.”  
  
She was beginning to lose the battle to maintain control over her expression. She wanted to laugh and cry all at once.  
  
A soft smile played across Dorian’s face. “And if you’re a demon, you’re certainly the strangest demon I’ve ever encountered. Tell me; is there such a thing as a spirit of undignified crying?”  
  
Vee did laugh then, though it was halfway between that and a sob.  
  
“Oh and there you go again. This has got to be some kind of Free Marcher quirk; I swear you take the slightest provocation as an excuse to turn on the waterworks. All we need to do to defeat Corypheus is send you at him with those big doe eyes of yours, and he’ll surrender out of pure mortification.”  
  
“Thanks, Dorian,” Vee managed, between tearful sniffles.  
  
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re the same person I befriended to begin with. Maker, we travelled through  _time_  together, I think that’s worth giving you the benefit of the doubt, don’t you?”  
  
For one of precious few times since Adamant, Vee found herself with a smile on her face.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since the other chapter was a slight shorty, today is double update day.

Skyhold’s gates were relief and worry all at once, and for the same reason. The Inquisition, or at least Vee’s inner circle, was never quite going to be the same again after this, but if they could get this sorted out, there was a chance, a slender one, that they would be able to return to normal functioning order.  
  
Thinking like that was kidding herself, and Vee knew it. There were already four people that she knew of whose opinion of her had taken a plunge to the depths of the ocean, and whatever plan Cassandra had in mind to resolve this, Vee somewhat doubted it would convince everyone to just set aside any prejudice or anger and say ‘Oh, okay, that’s all right then. You lied to us and stole someone’s life, but we’re square, now’.  
  
It didn’t help that the Seeker was being characteristically tight-lipped on exactly what she intended on doing. The most that Vee had been able to pry out of her was that she’d been in contact with Leliana several times since the events at Adamant, and that could mean more or less anything. That Leliana’s agents were searching for clues, running damage control, looking for experts in the field; though Vee doubted that lattermost. As expertise with spirits and the Fade went, they already had Solas.  
  
Though perhaps Solas was considered to be unreliable, biased towards her. Not a pleasant thought to contemplate. That put Vee in the mind of the plan being some kind of trial.  
  
Vee was so wrapped up in her own head that she didn’t notice the figure hovering nearby to welcome her until she’d already dismounted and gratefully given over her horse to one of master Dennet’s stablehands. She still hated riding. How much of that was her and how much was the old Violetta?”  
  
“Good to see you back, Violetta.”  
  
Vee started, turned, and her heart sank. Krem. He knew that he could address her; the return of her speech had been impossible to keep from him when Vee spent so much time hanging out with Sera and Bull at the Herald’s Rest.  
  
She gave a slow, unsteady nod of greeting.  
  
“Where’s the chief? Got a bone to pick with him,” Krem puffed out his chest. “Big lummox promised he’d write to me and the rest of the boys this time.”  
  
“Krem, I…” Vee stumbled, hesitated over the words. It would have been easier to sign it, not have to work past the barrier of her aching throat and rebellious tongue. He also wouldn’t have understood her.   
  
Something changed in Krem’s eyes. All semblance of jocularity dropped from his face.  
  
“I’m sorry, Krem. We lost him.”  
  
Krem stood there wordlessly for several painfully long seconds. “How… how did it happen?”  
  
“There was a demon in the battle at Adamant. A huge, powerful one. He… he fought it. Made sure everyone else could escape,” it hurt to say so much without any breaks, minimal pausing, but she owed it to Bull’s lieutenant to not drag this out, make him dread and worry. This was going to be hard enough for him as it was.  
  
Krem looked at her, a flurry of emotions passing over his face. “The big idiot,” he murmured. “I… did he say anything? Before, well… you know?”  
  
Vee could feel his hope so hard that it hurt.  
  
“He said ‘Horns up’,” Vee told Krem. It wasn’t a lie; even if Bull hadn’t spoken it out loud, it’d been what he was thinking.  
  
The Tevinter managed a half smile, although his face was still strained, drawn. He was trying to maintain his composure, trying not to let the emotions out. “Sounds like the chief.”  
  
Vee caught a glimpse of Cassandra out of the corner of her eye. The woman looked hesitant to approach, and Vee gave a minute shake of the head. The last thing she wanted to do was drag Krem into the complications surrounding what had happened at Adamant. The man already had enough to mourn. 

“I’m sorry, Krem,” Vee said again. “I tried to stop him but…” she stopped, and then just shook her head. He didn’t need to hear that Hawke had held her back, or that Bull had been protecting her. That wouldn’t help.  
  
“Wouldn’t listen, right?” the same, forced smile, no humour and all pain. “The chief never could back down from a challenge. Always told him that one day he’d, he’d…” Krem trailed off, and Vee could see him swallowing, face starting to crumple, struggling to hold back his grief.  
  
She was there in an instant, hugging him tightly around the back. Krem buried his face into the top of her head and gave a huge gasping sob. “S-stupid bloody…” his arms went around Vee and he clung to her like a child as the tears began to fall.  
  
 _Friend. Family. I should have told him to bring us. I should have been there._  
  
Feeling Krem’s sorrow was like experiencing her own all over again, only a little less intense for being second-hand. The wounds hadn’t healed, wouldn’t for a long time, most likely. But focusing on her own sadness was selfish. Krem hadn’t even had the chance to see how it happened; there was no closure, just a person who didn’t really know him that well telling him that his commander and friend was dead.   
  
Knowing that she’d caused this, indirectly by what had happened in the Fade and directly by being the one to tell Krem… it tore at Vee’s stomach from the inside.   
  
All that she could do was be here for him.  
  
They stood there together for a long time. Others gave them space; the Inquisition was a community, a family, even. After Haven, they understood what it was to grieve. Krem’s tears were quiet, but his breath gasped, over and over, shuddering, feeling to Vee as if he would just collapse if he didn’t have her to lean his weight on.   
  
Slowly, Krem’s sobs subsided. His pain, raw and open, didn’t, though it was numbed a little for Vee’s presence. It was good to know that she was a comfort, even if doubtlessly a tiny one.  
  
“Maker, I’m sorry,” Krem’s voice was choked with emotion. “You shouldn’t have had to see that.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Vee answered softly. “You have every right to be upset,” her gullet was starting to close up again, and she winced as swallowing caused a dry, crackling pain. She should stop talking, really, but to do that would be to withdraw her support from someone who desperately needed it.  
  
“Chief- Chief always said something like this might happen. Made a joke of it, said that bodyguarding important people is d-dangerous work,” Krem’s hands clenched, bunching trembling fistfuls of Vee’s shirt. “Guess we both wound up being r-right.”  
  
“He went… out like… a hero.”  
  
“I… I think he’d have liked that,” another sudden sob gripped him. “S-stupid …” he stopped.  
  
“Brave … not stupid… brave… he knew what… he was doing… but that it’d help… everyone… else,” she was having to force the words out now, a rasp in each syllable.  
  
Krem abruptly broke the embrace, stepping back just a little to look down into Vee’s face. “Y-you don’t have to keep talking, Vee. I’m a mercenary. We’re… we’re supposed to … it’s part of the job, you know?”  
  
Vee shook her head. “Losing… friends… isn’t anyone’s… job.”  
  
“…Yeah,” Krem let out a long sigh, laden with pain. “I should… I should let the others know,” he gritted his teeth, looked away. “Maker. This puts me in charge, doesn’t it?”  
  
“You don’t… have to… stay.”  
  
Krem glanced back to her, and then shook his head. “Chief would have wanted us to see the contract through. We’re professionals, no matter… no matter what else happens. We’ll stick it out.”  
  
Vee nodded, hesitated. “If you… need anything…” her voice gave out as she struggled for the next word, tailing off into a hoarse whisper.  
  
“I’ll come find you,” he seemed to understand. Vee gave a grateful nod, and opened her arms again.  
  
They shared another long hug before Krem stepped away, heading for the Herald’s Rest. Vee watched him go, heart aching. Was this ever going to end?  
  
She wished she’d never heard of that accursed fortress.


	34. Chapter 34

Two weeks passed. Around Skyhold, Cassandra’s vigil was a little more relaxed, a little less stringent. This was the heart of the Inquisition, any malevolent intent would see the instigator brought down extremely quickly.  
  
Vee wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or not. More not, when she was well aware that the hostile activity being watched for was her own. Still, that she hadn’t started bleeding from the eyes, chanting in tongues, and attempting to eviscerate people yet had all apparently improved her stock. Those, if Dorian was to be believed (she took him with a pinch of salt at the best of times), were the types of things that were expected of the possessed. Cassandra was giving her the run of the fort, though Vee was entirely certain that at least two of Leliana’s agents were watching her at all times. For now, she simply sat on a wall close to Skyhold’s gate, allowing her legs to swing out in front of her as she watched the Inquisition’s people bustle by.  
  
It would have been nice to treat this as a break from her responsibilities, an opportunity to not constantly be overlooking plans and operations, discussing diplomatic advances with Josephine, information that Leliana’s spies had uncovered. However, all Vee felt was a keen sense of isolation. She was cut out of the loop on what exactly the Inquisition was doing, the state of their current activities; they certainly weren’t allowing her anywhere near the war table, although given that would have involved close contact with Cullen, maybe that was for the best. The point was that they clearly didn’t trust Vee to have input, and that hurt a lot more than she ever would have thought.  
  
They’d valued her opinion a lot more than anyone else back in Ostwick. They’d even given her a title, in spite of her self-professed problems with any kind of leadership. At the time she hadn’t been comfortable with the idea of command, wasn’t sure that she was exactly cut out to be helping make the big decisions. Now, she just wished that they’d stop treating her like a criminal.  
  
She wanted her friends back.  
  
Varric and Dorian could keep her spirits up only so much, and one part of the unfortunate truth was that Vee was currently the only person in Skyhold with no duties whatsoever. As much as she would have liked to just curl up reading in an alcove with Dorian in the library, he had research to do, spells to practice, plenty enough that Vee felt guilty for hanging around all the time. Varric was up to his ears in responsibility thanks to his status with the dwarven merchant guild.  
  
She was back on speaking terms with Solas, she supposed, but that was one wound that hadn’t quite healed yet. Vee had forgiven him, more or less… but with her status as Inquisitor, indeed as a part of the Inquisition period up in the air, it was difficult to forget that his lying to her had contributed significantly to the mess.

“Excuse me, miss?”  
  
Vee was startled out of her thoughts, looking down from her perch to see a diminutive elven woman regarding her. The lack of height – she was even smaller than Vee, who didn’t precisely tower – caused it to take a moment for Vee to realise that the elf was on a crutch, a beautifully carved thing quite at odds with the weathered travelling cloak and clothes the woman was wearing. Vee’s eyes were drawn immediately to the woman’s legs. Or rather, leg; the right-side limb was simply absent, the truncated cloth of her breeches ending in a neat fold no more than a foot below the waist.  
  
She brought her gaze back up. Staring wasn’t polite. Vee nodded.  
  
The elf smiled easily. She was a pale thing, her hair jet black, a long braid disappearing into the back of her cloak. “I’ve been trying to find someone, but everyone’s so busy that nobody has had time to help me. If you don’t mind my saying, you didn’t look like you were doing anything much.”  
  
Well. She had Vee there. Vee opened her mouth to answer, and then hesitated. Although the elf obviously didn’t know who Vee was, she was hesitant to talk out loud. Her speech was still being kept a secret, although when contrasted against the other secret that was currently concealed, it seemed almost trivial.  
  
Nevertheless, Vee shrugged quickly, then tapped two fingers against her throat.  
  
The elf frowned, and then her eyebrows rose. “Oh. You can’t talk?”  
  
Vee nodded again. A speculative look came onto the woman’s face, and then she laughed suddenly.  
  
“Oh that’s brilliant. Here I am getting letters sent to me, and I manage to find the person I’ve been brought in for, before the one who actually asked me here.”  
  
Vee’s confusion must have showed, because the elf held up a finger.  
  
“Sorry, getting ahead of myself. Don’t doubt everyone’s being all cloak and dagger around you right now,” the woman gave a smooth bow, perfectly balanced in spite of only standing on one foot. “My name is Rosemary, I’m a researcher. Well, that’s what I tell people anyway. Between you and me it involves a lot of digging around through dusty old caves poking things that would rather remain unpoked,” she grinned. “And you must be, ahem-“ Rosemary put on a deep, booming voice. “The Herald of Andraste, High Inquisitor, Lady Violetta Trevelyan of Ostwick,” she dropped back into her ordinary tone, an irreverent lilt. “Am I about right?”  
  
Guardedly, Vee nodded for a third time.  
  
Rosemary’s eyes twinkled. “Aha. Somebody who can’t tell me to shut up. Match made by the Maker himself,” she paused, glancing at Vee’s expression, which was growing steadily more bemused. “All right, if I promise to stop making fun of you, will you show me to where Leliana hangs around?” another slight pause, and then a beaming smile came onto Rosemary’s face. “I bet it’s the top of the tower, isn’t it? That’s the type of place she’d like.”  
  
Vee slid off the wall, feeling… a little overwhelmed, actually. The tiny elf was certainly a motormouth, and this was supposedly the expert Cassandra had in mind to resolve the issue? If she’d been brought in  _for_  Vee, and been sent for  _by_  Leliana, then there didn’t seem to be too many other options. Vee didn’t know how to feel about that, and masked her doubts by making a beckoning gesture towards a nearby set of stairs.  
  
“Is that a ‘yes, you’re right’ or a ‘yes, I’ll take you to her’? Wait, sorry. I said I’d stop doing that. Okay, lead on.” 

Vee set off, glancing periodically over her shoulder, expecting that she’d have to move quite slowly to allow Rosemary to keep up. That turned out to be decisively not the case.  
  
Rosemary’s crutch was less like a replacement limb and more a means of keeping balance and orientation as she hopped along quite happily – and far faster than Vee had ever seen anyone move on one leg. Cole was still using his own crutch to get about, and his movements were much more laboured than this. Rosemary barely seemed to be impaired at all, to the point Vee had to wonder how long she’d had to adapt to the disability.   
  
Stairs didn’t even seem to pose a challenge; while there was a loud clattering as Rosemary followed along in Vee’s wake, the elf had no problem bounding up the steps like an enthusiastic mabari.  
  
Curious eyes followed the pair as they entered Skyhold’s main tower, passing through Solas’s rotunda, the walls of which were steadily being covered in beautiful paintings. Her friend was absent. Vee made a gesture to the stairs up, and Rosemary gave a nod, then grinned.  
  
“I was right? Chalk one more up for me, Rosemary’s just running away with the game now!”  
  
Vee smiled in spite of herself. The elf’s enthusiasm was infectious.   
  
They made their way to the top of the tower where Leliana made her ‘office’ amongst the rookery. The Inquisition’s spymaster was seated behind her desk, having a quiet conversation with one of her people, stopping abruptly when Vee came into view.  
  
Wait, no, she wasn’t looking at Vee. She was hearing the click-clack of Rosemary’s crutch on the stairs.  
  
The elf popped up alongside Vee and her face lit up in a flash as she saw Leliana.  
  
“Well hi there stranger. Fancy meeting you here.”  
  
Leliana sprang from her seat and then seemed to remember herself, attempting to mask the motion as just smoothly rising to greet the newcomers, and failing miserably.   
  
“Rose! I hadn’t expected you so soon!” Leliana clapped her hands together, raised her voice. “Out. All of you.”  
  
The Inquisition agents began to filter out of the room, heading down the stairs. Rosemary gave a lazy, one armed shrug. “Have you ever known me to pass up a chance at exploring a new magical phenomenon?” Rosemary hopped forward, winked. “Or to see you, I suppose. Come here right this second.”  
  
All of a sudden, the tiny elf was wrapping her arms around Leliana’s shoulders, letting the crutch go clattering to the floor. The spymaster foundered.  
  
“Rose, that’s-“  
  
Rosemary stopped the protest in its tracks with a kiss, and now Vee  _really_  didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on. The idea of anyone kissing Leliana and not meeting with an immediate grisly demise was unfathomable.  
  
“Whoops,” the elf said as she broke the kiss, smirking like the cat that got the cream. “I thought I saw something on your mouth, but it was just me.”  
  
Leliana glowered, but that was the extent of her reaction. Rosemary laughed with delight.  
  
“You should see your face. This is my revenge for dragging me away from my research.”  
  
“How were you progressing?”  
  
Rosemary’s brow furrowed. “Poorly,” she admitted. “We had a few leads, but when we all started to hear the Calling, that threw us off course. Which is somewhat ironic, all things considered. I left the rest of the expedition to put the pieces back together while I followed up on your request. Perhaps there’s more insight to be found with this magister of yours. It’s a working theory.”

Vee stared at Rosemary. She was a Grey Warden. An elven Grey Warden. Who knew Leliana.   
  
The dots all suddenly connected.  
  
“Wait, you’re the Hero of Fereldan?”  
  
“My hidden identity! It is revealed!” Rosemary gasped. “Also you said you couldn’t talk. Cheater.”  
  
“Violetta was unable to speak for some time. It is not common knowledge that she can do so again,” Leliana supplied.  
  
Rosemary let go of the spymaster’s shoulders and ducked down, retrieving her crutch in an impossibly smooth motion. Vee wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen someone quite so in tune with their own body.  
  
“Ooh, a secret, is it? I like secrets.”  
  
“And yet you are terrible at keeping them,” Leliana remarked dryly.   
  
“That’s what I have you for.”  
  
Vee looked back and forth between the two of them. “I… didn’t recognise you,” so many stories about the saviour of Fereldan, conqueror of the Fifth Blight, and Vee hadn’t even realised she was speaking to the central figure of those tales.  
  
Rosemary shrugged. “I tend not to introduce myself with the whole ‘Hero of Fereldan’ pomp. It’s just easier that way; fame is both boring and inconvenient. Always had people wanting me to bless their babies or sign their dogs or something. Luckily for me, for all that they like to talk about my amazing exploits, they’re pretty terrible at actually remembering my name. I get ‘Surana’ if I’m lucky, but honestly, they’d try and leave out that I’m an elven mage if they thought could get away with it. I think I’ve only ever heard one where they mentioned the cripple part. And they got the wrong limb.”  
  
“I wish you wouldn’t call yourself that,” Leliana said softly.  
  
“We’ve been over this, Leli.”  
  
“I know,” there was a significant look between the two of them, and then Leliana glanced back to Vee. “Setting aside her renown for a moment, Rosemary is an expert on the magical school of spirit. She also has personal experience in breaking possession.”  
  
“Mm,” Rosemary regarded Vee too – this scrutiny was starting to become a little much. “She’s not quite a Connor, is she? None of that whole ‘muhahah I will destroy everything, look a horde of undead’ business. Are you sure she’s actually possessed?”  
  
“We aren’t certain.”  
  
Vee shrugged helplessly. “This … this body. It wasn’t mine. I thought it was, but…”  
  
Rosemary’s eyebrows rose. “Maker’s breath. You’re a spirit, aren’t you?”  
  
Vee paused. “Did Leliana tell you that?”  
  
The elf laughed. “Leliena is a dear, but she’s also incredibly vague when it comes to sharing information. No…” Rosemary leaned forward, studying Vee intently. “I’ve encountered this before- well, not precisely this, but similar. Same principle of a spirit residing in another form; just in that case the body that was entered was already quite dead. But you…” her eyes lit up. “The body was still alive. Had to be. Justice was rotting away when he entered that corpse. Unless you’ve been pickling yourself, you’d have fallen to bits by now. That is… interesting, I should run some-”

Leliana cleared her throat. Rosemary looked sheepish, pausing in the middle of her rapid-fire speech.

“Sorry. I get carried away sometimes. In any case, you have a little spirit problem. Or is it that you  _are_  the little spirit problem?”  
  
“I’m the Inquisition’s spirit problem,” Vee said, with perhaps a touch of bitterness. She was sick of being a pariah, sick of dreading that one day she’d wake up and be… something else. Something twisted.   
  
All of her memories were facsimiles, stolen reminiscences of someone else’s life. Vee wanted to help, still, but she couldn’t see how that was possible without either continuing how she was or leaving ‘Violetta’ behind… and the thought of that frightened her.  
  
“Hm. All right then,” Rosemary hopped a few steps, looked Vee up and down again. “With your permission, I’d like to study you, little miss spirit. I might be able to come up with a solution.”  
  
“Can you end the possession?” asked Leliana.  
  
Rosemary frowned. “I said ‘come up with a solution’. Don’t make assumptions.”  
  
“If you think you can help, I’d be glad to take it, only…” Vee grimaced, the familiar pain of overuse beginning to scratch again at her throat. “My voice tires easily.”  
  
“I’ll fetch paper, then. Or, more accurately, I’ll get Leliana to get people to fetch paper,” the elf winked. “One perk of being on a crutch means that nobody’s allowed to complain when I ask them to do things,” Rosemary refocused on Leliana. “I’ll need a workspace, Leli. Oh, and maybe another mage or two. I think better when I have people to argue with. Violetta… stand there and look pretty for a minute. I’d like to ask you some questions, but I need to be able to take notes down first.”  
  
“I… forgot how intense you could be sometimes, Rose,” Leliana said, shaking her head.  
  
“More fool you for calling me here, then,” Rosemary smiled fondly. “I missed you, Leli.”   
  
“And I, you,” Leliana stepped away, heading for the stairs. “I’ll make the arrangements,” Rosemary transferred her gaze back to Vee.  
  
“Okay. While Leliana is doing that, I’d like you to think about a few things. First off, just how much do you recall of the Fade?”


	35. Chapter 35

Solas arrived in the tower to find Vee slowly transcribing her answers onto paper, repeatedly smudging the ink with her hand in the process. She’d never been the most elegant writer. Or the original Vee hadn’t.  
  
Vee smiled and waved a greeting at her friend. This ‘interview’ with Rosemary was turning out a lot different from how she’d expected. She’d anticipated an interrogation, demands along the lines of accusations about what she had done, how she was occupying this body, probably sprinkled in with a healthy dose of calling her a demon.   
  
Rosemary was perfectly polite and jumped to no such conclusions, reading everything Vee wrote down intently and then scribbling notes in messy scrawls. The mage talked a great deal, both in asking her questions and musing aloud over the answers, almost as if she was having an ongoing conversation with herself, raising possibilities, debating them and dismissing or upholding them. She was a little ball of energy, and Vee found herself both struggling to keep up and, surprisingly, actually enjoying the company. Though she was a Grey Warden, it was difficult to blame her for events that had nothing to do with her, and in honesty, it was refreshing to meet someone new who didn’t immediately get hung up over either Vee’s muteness or her position as the Herald.  
  
If Vee was to consider it, Rosemary was probably used to similar versions of both of those things.  
  
“Oh, hi there,” Rosemary called. “You must be the guy I’m going to spend the next few days yelling at.”  
  
Solas blinked. “Excuse me?”  
  
“Nothing personal, of course! Just most mages I meet tend to disagree with me. A lot.”  
  
 _’She’s the one that L e l i a n a brought in,’_  Vee signed, laying down her quill for a moment.  _’She’s been asking me about a lot of things. Spirits, the Fade, my memories, all kinds.’_    
  
“Thank you, Vee,” Solas eyed his fellow elf dubiously. “I make no value judgements on magic, but oftentimes those forms which are shunned are due to their methodologies. You say others disagree with you; tell me, are you a blood mage?”  
  
Rosemary’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Maker, no! My research would be much more difficult if I used blood magic. No, most circle mages just don’t like how I approach my school.”  
  
“Fortunately for you, I am no circle mage, nor was I ever. You will find me to be somewhat more open minded than most.”  
  
The Warden let out a gasp of faux shock. “An apostate! I am stunned and shocked! Of course, the circles don’t exist anymore, so strictly speaking you’re all apostates now.”  
  
“Sentiments I have expressed before, though I note you do not include yourself in that category.”  
  
 _’She’s a Warden, S o l a s.’_  
  
“A Warden? You are aware, I hope, of the recent events at Adamant fortress?”  
  
Rosemary glanced at Vee for a second, squinting at her. “Oh, I get it. You’re talking with signs. Clever,” she shrugged. “Yes, I heard about Adamant. I can’t say I agree with Clarel’s solution, but I can empathise with her reasons. The Calling is…” Rosemary shook her head. “Seductive. Pleasant, almost. It’s precisely why it’s so terrifying; we give our lives to fight against the Blight, we don’t want to become a slave to it. Wish I could have been there to talk some sense into her, but then, if my research had come to fruition, the Calling would no longer have been a problem. Can’t dwell on ‘what ifs’ I suppose,” a more calculating look came onto the elf’s face. “Incidentally, I’ve heard that you’ve been making use of the Wardens out in the field. Do be careful with my colleagues, won’t you? I don’t particularly enjoy doing the leadership thing, but we all have our obligations, and I’ll have to intervene if you’re putting them in undue danger.”

“Leadership- what rank do you hold?”  
  
Rosemary quirked a smile at Solas. “Warden-Commander. I think there are a few other titles that go there, but Warden-Commander is the important one. Honestly though, I mostly got it because all the others were dead, and the one that wasn’t got a bit busy with the whole ‘royalty’ business.”  
  
Solas scrutinised her. “Or, because you rallied Fereldan to end a Blight.”  
  
If the Warden was surprised at Solas figuring out who she was, she didn’t show it. “Well yes, that too. Still, as much as I’m my own favourite topic, I believe we were busy doubting my credentials. Oh wait, that means we’re still talking about me. Score.”  
  
Solas was beginning to look overwhelmed, a feeling Vee was quite familiar with after just a little exposure to the diminutive elf.  
  
 _’She’s been doing this constantly since I met her, S o l a s.’_  
  
He nodded. “Would you care to explain these controversial views of yours?”  
  
“That’d take a while, so let me summarise. The short version is that I talk with spirits much too much for anyone else’s liking. Never mind that they often have a great deal of insight, and can help highlight perspectives on the use of magic that we don’t tend to think of, because they don’t see things in the same way as…” Rosemary trailed off. “You’re giving me a look. Is that ‘Maker she cavorts with demons!’ or ‘What kind of idiot interacts with spirits without binding them’? I’m used to both.”  
  
“Neither, actually. I place a great deal of value in the counsel of spirits.”  
  
“Huh. That’s a new one,” Rosemary wrinkled her nose. “Does that mean we don’t get to fight? Shame. Arguing helps me get my thoughts straight.”  
  
Solas chuckled. “I’m sure we can find plenty to disagree upon, given time.”  
  
 _’Has she come up with anything yet?’_  
  
Vee felt a strange fluttering of anxiety in her chest as Solas relayed the question. As much as Rosemary was likable, she was an unknown quantity. For all Vee knew, the mage was looking at ways of banishing her back to the Fade, maybe even binding her. That was something Cole had expressed worries about happening to him, and they two of them weren’t that different, were they?  
  
Rosemary tipped her head to the side, considering. “It’s difficult to say,” she admitted. “Hope is an interesting case; it embodies a concept that almost requires others. You can’t hope unless there’s something you want to happen… or not happen, as the case may be. That’s different from a lot of spirits. I’d go as far to say that Hope is one of the most likely denizens of the Fade to attempt to aid people from our world,” her fingers drummed an intensive beat on the desk. “A spirit ‘hears’ someone in the Fade, and not just a dreamer, actually physically there. Naturally, this person wants a way out, and quite desperately at that. It’s only natural that something like Hope would be drawn in to try and help.”  
  
 _’I think we knew most of that alrea-‘_  
  
Rosemary waved a hand, cutting Vee off as she signed to Solas. “Questions later. Need to finish talking this through or I’ll lose my train of thought,” she glanced up to the ceiling for a moment, then back down. “So we have Hope and we have someone walking in the Fade, no doubt suffering considerable trauma for the fact they just got blown up and then landed on a different plane of existence,” a slight pause, then a nod. “So much so that Violetta Trevelyan winds up completely overwhelmed and, well, there isn’t really a pleasant way of saying this, but her mind is destroyed.”

Vee winced. Solas frowned. “We had pieced together as much. Where are you going with this?”  
  
“Well. This is where it gets interesting, actually. Violetta isn’t dead. I mean, the lights are on but nobody’s home, but she isn’t  _dead_. Hope comes along, trying to fulfil its purpose, trying to help. Get this strange presence in the Fade back on its feet? It’s not too farfetched a conclusion. So Hope makes an attempt, and because its understanding of our world doesn’t extend to this situation, it touches Violetta’s mind,” Rosemary rocked back and forth, growing more animated the more into her theorising she got. “Like I said, I’ve seen this before; where there’s emptiness, it demands to be filled. Hope, I believe quite accidentally, enters Violetta, and because there’s nothing in the mind, it  _gains_  the mind. It fills up her form like pouring water into an empty vessel.”  
  
The more Rosemary spoke, the more familiar all this felt. Vee realised, suddenly, that it was because the mage was putting words to her own vague understanding of the situation, fleshing out concepts that had before been only feelings and impressions. She still didn’t really recall what it had been to be Hope, and yet this was ringing surprisingly true.  
  
The Warden continued on. “Needless to say, this is traumatic. Spirits do not have a physical form. They have no  _desire_  for a physical form. All of a sudden, Hope is in a living, breathing body, experiencing consciousness in a way that is entirely new to it, experiencing the Fade – the only home it has ever known – through the eyes of a body whose nature runs entirely counter to what the Fade is,” Rosemary interlaced her fingers. “And in this body are memories, thoughts, feelings, emotions. The mind might be gone, but the shape of the vessel it lived in was moulded to fit that mind. By filling those spaces, Hope picks up and retains a great deal of the same information. Taken together, it’s little wonder Hope winds up having a bit of an identity crisis. Arguably, a person’s thoughts are what make them that person. Arguably, Hope is now nearly as much Violetta  _as_  Violetta.”  
  
“An interesting theory. My thoughts on the matter were similar,” Solas scowled. “Unfortunately my friendship with Vee has led to the perception that I have a vested interest, as if that were sufficient cause to endanger others,” he shook his head abruptly. “No. I am afraid our colleagues are unlikely to view this explanation as anything other than confirmation that she is possessed.”  
  
“Well she is. Sort of. The word has negative connotations, but there aren’t really too many other ways of phrasing it. I mean, Vee certainly doesn’t strike me as a demon, but this is a rather peculiar set of circumstances, and a particularly cunning demon is definitely capable of masking their true nature until the opportune moment. No offence, Vee.”  
  
Vee frowned and said nothing. She hated the implication; not because it was offensive but because it was terrifying. Desire was devious and patient, and so very subtle. The very notion that something like that could be lurking within her turned her stomach.  
  
“In any case, I have a couple of ideas. I doubt Leli or your Seeker are going to like any of them, but that’s what they get for bringing me in. Unpopular ideas.”

“Go on.”  
  
“It’s actually quite simple; I know of a ritual that allows a mage to enter the Fade in deliberate, directed manner. It needs lyrium, and several mages, but I’ve done it before, freed a young boy from a demon’s possession. Doing that would allow us to investigate the spirit – or rather, you, in your home environment,” Rosemary shrugged. “The other solution that springs to mind is a bit more drastic and involves rounding up a darkspawn or two. I wouldn’t recommend it.”  
  
Vee glanced at Solas.  _’Will that work? The ritual, I mean?’_  
  
“I can see the principle, and I have heard of such magic. However, entering the Fade in this fashion would pose considerable risk both to the mage and you yourself, Vee.”  
  
Rosemary held up a finger. “Naturally, I’m not asking anyone else to do this. I suggested it, I’ve done it before. If this is the route we take, then I’ll be the one to head into the Fade.”  
  
“Yes. That is one of my concerns.”  
  
The Warden’s eyebrows rose, and then she broke into a smile. “Ah, a good bit of old fashioned paranoia. Here I was worrying we wouldn’t get to argue at all. What’s got your hackles up, then?”  
  
“We are to believe that an outside party, one that our spymaster has reason to trust implicitly, is both an expert on spirits and is willing to offer her aid. In the Fade, there would be little to prevent you severing Vee’s connection with her body and likely killing her.”  
  
 _’S o l a s.’_  
  
He ignored her. “To be frank, I see little evidence to suggest you are not here to ‘resolve’ this in precisely the destructive fashion I have come to expect Cassandra and Leliana to endorse. Extreme times call for extreme measures, as the saying goes.”  
  
Rosemary regarded him silently for several long seconds. “All right. Let’s play this game for a moment. Assuming that I’m not only lying directly to your face, but also that I’m willing to risk damaging the reputation of the Wardens even further,  _and_  murder someone simply for what they are… What, exactly, would I stand to gain from that?”  
  
Solas returned her gaze impassively. Rosemary slid off the edge of the desk, leaning on her crutch and hopping forward, closer to him. Though the height difference was considerable, that didn’t appear to faze her. “Your Corypheus is a darkspawn. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m rather against the agenda of darkspawn. What you’re suggesting is that I came here purely to kill the leader of the most unified force in Thedas that is opposing the magister, the only person shown to be capable of closing these rifts in the Fade,” Rosemary’s eyes were hard. For the first time, there was no mirth on her face. “And you’re also suggesting that the person who proposed this idea is more prepared to take an indirect route than just execute the plan. Your own spymaster, who to you is apparently ruthless enough to have her leader killed but not enough to do it without involving magic. If Leliana wanted your friend dead, Solas, she would already have a knife in her throat. I am here to help. Are we clear?”  
  
The two of them glared at each other, and then Solas took a step back, bowing his head. “I am sorry. I have grown used to our colleagues treating Vee with suspicion, and in turn I have become more vigilant.”  
  
Rosemary nodded. “I understand. But don’t accuse me of being a murderer again. It hurts my feelings,” the smile was right back on her face. “So, miss spirit. How’s the idea of me having a poke around in the Fade side of your head tickle your fancy?”  
  
Vee bit her lip.  _’It’s worth a shot.’_  
  
“I still don’t speak that, but you’re not giving me a look-of-death, so… should I start trying to scrounge up some lyrium?”  
  
Vee’s heartbeat quickened.  
  
The person with their hands on the keys to the Inquisition’s lyrium stores…


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello yes I am terrible.

Reluctantly, Vee explained the situation to the Warden, having to take brief breaks whenever her voice grew tired. She told Rosemary about what had happened after Adamant, Cullen’s reaction to the revelation of her nature, the fact that they’d barely exchanged words since then, that he was still suspicious of her. Rosemary nodded along as Vee spoke, and then, once she concluded, reached out and gave a gentle pat on the shoulder.  
  
“That’s rough, Vee. I’ve been in a similar spot.”  
  
“You have? When?”  
  
“A long time ago,” Rosemary deftly avoided the question. “Look, I know this isn’t going to be something you want to hear, but you should come with me to talk to him.”  
  
Vee blanched. “But… he hates me,” she murmured.  
  
Rosemary frowned and shook her head. “He was angry and lashing out. That’s not the same thing as hate.”  
  
“…Maybe.”  
  
“If you don’t try and patch things up, he sure won’t,” Rosemary took a couple of hops towards the rookery’s stairs. “Are you willing to leave it at this?”  
  
Vee hesitated. “…No.”  
  
She wasn’t. She didn’t want that argument to be the last memory she had of Cullen. She didn’t want things between them to end that way. Maybe nothing could go back to the way it was before, but she could at least try to retrieve something of what they’d had.  
  
Rosemary gave a smile. “Then show me to him. You can at least bury the hatchet, right?”  
  
They headed downstairs. Vee pointed out the route to Cullen’s office, and before she could say anything, Rosemary hopped on ahead in that lopsided gait of hers and knocked on the door.  
  
“Come in.”  
  
If Vee’s heart wasn’t in her mouth already, hearing that voice would have done it.  
  
Rosemary opened the door. Vee trailed along behind her, both hoping for and dreading the sight of the man she knew was within.  
  
As always, there he was behind the desk, nose buried in a sheaf of papers, staring at them intently.  
  
“If it’s a report, just leave it there. I’ll get to it when I have a moment,” Cullen said, without looking up.  
  
“Hello to you too, mister bigshot.”  
  
Cullen’s head snapped up and his jaw dropped.  
  
“Rosemary?” he whispered, disbelieving.  
  
“Miss me?” Rosemary moved forward with a few hops, a sad little smile playing across her face.  
  
Vee stood in the doorway, rocked by an outpouring of emotion, surprised as much as anything else. Rosemary hadn’t let on for a moment that she  _knew_  Cullen. She’d hate to play Wicked Grace with the mage, because there hadn’t been the slightest flicker on her face when Vee had said the name of the Inquisition’s commander. Could it be that back when he was a templar, the two of them shared a circle?  
  
_Regret. Remorse. So long since that day. So long since I’ve seen her._  
  
_Harrowed. Horrified. Did he ever recover? Did he manage to move on?_  
  
“I… what are you doing here?”  
  
“Oh, you know. I was in the neighbourhood. Thought I’d stop by and see an old friend.”  
  
Cullen looked stunned, but suddenly, his eyes slipped past Rosemary and caught sight of Vee standing close to the door. His expression changed in an instant. Rage. Vee went rigid. Oh no. Oh no no.  
  
“How- how  _dare_  you?” both of his hands trembled. He clenched them into fists, but Vee could see from across the room that the shaking wasn’t stopping.  
  
“Wow, if I knew you’d react like that, I wouldn’t have come.”  
  
The easy humour in Rosemary’s voice was belied by the edge in her tone. Wariness. Watchfulness.  
  
Cullen didn’t even seem to notice that she’d spoken. His eyes were locked on Vee’s, boring into her balefully.  
  
“Digging through my head,” he seethed. “Dragging out memories of – of  _her_. Did you really think I’d fall for such tricks, demon? Your kind have used such illusions on me before; I did not break then, and I will not break now!”

Vee shook her head frantically.  _’It’s not a trick!’_  
  
“Cullen,” Rosemary’s voice was soft, but firm. “This isn’t Kinloch Hold. I’m here. I’m real.”  
  
Cullen laughed humourlessly. “Of course you are. And you’ve come to tell me that you’re sorry for rejecting me, that you don’t prefer the company of women after all, and that you want to be with me. I have  _heard this before_ ,” his last words came out as a snarl and he rose from his desk, so violently that his chair tipped over, clattering to the ground behind him.  
  
Vee looked rapidly between the two of them, beginning to breathe more quickly, hyperventilating. Not this, not again. She should have let the Warden see Cullen alone, why did she believe Rosemary when she said that things could be smoothed over? She  _knew_  exactly how Cullen felt about her; feeling someone’s emotions tended to make that type of thing exceptionally clear.  
  
“Quite certain I’ve been in a committed relationship for almost ten years now, actually,” Rosemary responded stiffly. “I know you’re upset with Violetta, Cullen, but-“  
  
“You thought a familiar face may convince me to let my guard down,” Cullen growled, stepping around the front of his desk. He towered over Rosemary, but again his gaze hadn’t moved off Vee, as if he believed that the words were coming through her. “You must be getting desperate to make your move so openly. Are we coming too close to the truth, demon?”  
  
_Revulsion. Rage. She paws at my mind. She perverts my memories._  
  
Vee’s vision blurred. There was a strange buzz to Cullen’s thoughts, a slight incoherence not fully at home with the familiar cadences of his feelings that she had grown used to. He was angry, furiously so – the fury hot enough that ‘listening’ to him almost seemed to burn her. However, there was something else. Something odd and sick and desperate.  _’C u l l e n. Please…’_  
  
“Cullen. We’re not here to try and deceive you, all right?” Rosemary spoke slowly, uneasily.   
  
_Frantic. Fearful. It’s just like Kinloch. It’s like he’s reliving it._

“Stop hiding behind her, Desire!” Cullen snapped, bulling forward, colliding with Rosemary and stopping dead, as if he had not expected her to actually be a physical presence. He blinked once, twice, thrice.

The Warden teetered, overbalanced, and fell back onto the floor with a thump, cushioning her fall with hand, crutch, and the resigned practice of someone who had toppled over many times.

  
Desire. There it was again. Vee’s stomach twisted with sorrow.   
  
Rosemary looked up from the ground. “If you’re done, we came to ask you about securing some lyrium for a ritual.”  
  
“Lyrium…?” Cullen sounded dazed. “I… why are you asking about…” he trailed off, and at last he broke eye contact with Vee, staring away at a wall.  
  
_Craving. Cursed. I should be taking it. I should be-_  
  
He looked back to her. His eyes were dead. “I see. You mean to tempt me. Rosemary and lyrium. Clever, but not clever enough.”  
  
Cullen stepped past Rosemary, stalking towards Vee with a slow, deliberate purpose. Behind him, the mage was attempting to get back up, a complicated endeavour requiring her to use her crutch as a lever.  
  
_’I’m not lying to you, C u l l e n. Please listen to me. I never wanted to hurt you.’_

“That was another clever trick, by the way. Not speaking allowed you both to reduce the chances of you saying something untoward and gain sympathy for the disability,” Cullen regarded her, ice in his voice. “And I fell for it. Poor, mute Violetta. How could she possibly mean any harm when she can’t even talk?”  
  
Vee tried to stifle a sob. She felt physically sick, physically  _strange_ , like her insides were churning up. The white hot anger emanating from across the room was burning her up, making it hard to think straight.  
  
“Enough!” Cullen roared. “Enough games, Desire!”  
  
The word echoed in her head.  _Desire._  
  
“Cullen! Get away from her!” Rosemary pleaded.  
  
He didn’t listen. Instead, he lunged.  
  
Cullen slammed bodily into Vee, a forearm crashing into her throat, pinning her against the wall, choking her. Vee made a strangled gasp, the arm pressing tightly into the already-abused airway. This couldn’t be happening. Not this way. Not Cullen.

His expression was a twisted snarl, but there was something else, something at the fringes. Desperation. Again that buzzing around his thoughts, again that distinct sense of  _need_. Touching that sensation with her mind sent a strange and foreign shiver through her. Every fibre of him was longing for something, longing for…  
  
Lyrium.  
  
How long had he not been taking it?  
  
The thought was fleeting, however, rapidly replaced by the crushing, suffocating pain of having that arm across her throat, those hate-filled eyes glaring at her. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t, she couldn’t-  
  
There was a wave of power from across the room. Vee tasted magic on the air and Cullen reeled back, as if seized by an invisible force. Vee immediately dropped to the ground, collapsing on her knees, gasping and choking.  
  
Her teeth felt sharp in her mouth.  
  
Rosemary’s hands glowed with her magic. Her face was almost expressionless.  
  
“Let her go, Cullen,” she murmured quietly. “Step away, let her go, and we can discuss this alone.”  
  
Vee could feel something trickling down her face. Tears? She put a hand to the wetness. Her fingers came away smeared bloody. She stared at them, fascinated, enthralled.  
  
Cullen stood stock still for a moment. He cast a wild look over his shoulder. “Magic? You used…” his breathing was ragged, and his thoughts were even worse, disorganised shreds that Vee could barely make sense of any longer. Maker, what were these withdrawals  _doing_  to him?  
  
“I… I cannot. She’s inside of my head. She wants to break me.”  
  
Pain seared through Vee’s chest, accompanied by… something else.  
  
Resentment.  
  
She’d done everything she could for the Inquisition. She’d done it without question, and in reply, she’d received suspicion and wariness. In return, she’d been treated like a criminal and a liar.  
  
It didn’t matter to them that she had no way of knowing what she’d done, or that she’d lost a lot too.  
  
They just cared about what they could take from her.  
  
“Nobody is getting broken, Cullen. Leave her be, and let her walk out of that door. I can help you. Remember how we used to talk in the circle? You’re my friend, Cullen, but you need to let me help.”  
  
She deserved gratitude. She deserved something in return.  
  
Cullen gave an agonised groan. “I will  _not_  let you in, demon. I will not!”  
  
Demon.  
  
Demon.  
  
Demon.  
  
“It’s not even Vee speaking, Cullen! It’s me! Rosemary! Please listen! You got in trouble once for fixing my crutch; the Knight-Commander thought we were spending too much time-“  
  
“BE SILENT!”  
  
Cullen stepped forward and seized Vee by the scruff of her neck, hauling her upright.  
  
Vee slapped him across the face, and he cried out in pain, relinquishing his hold, stumbling backwards, hand clapping to his cheek.  
  
No.   
  
She  _slashed_  him across the face, digging deep, raking flesh with… with…  
  
“Oh Maker, no…” Rosemary whispered.  
  
Vee stared at her hand, dripping with Cullen’s blood.  
  
The nails had become talons, sharp as razors, more claw than hand.  
  
Someone laughed. It was a second before Vee realised that it was her.  
  
Unsteadily, she rocked back and forth, cradling her arm, her monstrous hand.  
  
This was wrong. This was impossibly wrong. Her skull felt like it was being struck with an axe, again and again, aching with an unrelenting pressure from within.  
  
“Vee. Vee, can you hear me?”  
  
Her head snapped up, and Vee heard a sharp intake of breath from the Warden as their eyes met.  
  
Vee’s whole body shook, and without another word, she turned and bolted from the room.  
  
She needed to be somewhere -  _anywhere_  else.


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments on the preceding chapter! It was a big moment and I wasn't sure how well it would go down - I'm really happy to see it's had the kind of impact I was hoping for.
> 
> The comments and feedback from all you readers are really driving my enthusiasm - I'm constantly looking forward to posting the next update, and it means a lot to me to know that so many people are digging the story.
> 
> Anyway, that's a bit of gushiness from me. Speaking of getting excited to update, here's another one. Yeah, I maybe get a little carried away here and there >_>.

Writing didn’t come easily to Hawke. Words had always been difficult, even when she was a child; she tripped over them and stumbled and repeated herself, she got flustered when she couldn’t properly articulate what she wanted to say. It made being blunt almost a necessity. Say little, and there was less chance of screwing any of it up. Leave the prose and the wordplay to Varric. He was good at that kind of thing. Sometimes, Hawke still couldn’t quite believe some of the inspiring speeches he’d attributed to her in his book. Then she remembered that Varric was also a liar with a flair for the dramatic, and went right back to believing that was something he’d do.  
  
She supposed it made for a better story when the protagonist could respond with glibber quips than ‘Yeah? Well… I’ll put you through that table!’  
  
It had taken more effort to do that than Hawke expected, but she’d managed it in the end.  
  
Regardless, when it came time to commit ink to paper and write Sebastian in Starkhaven, Hawke invariably struggled. Often, she felt like she was repeating the same words over and over, had actually expressed as much to him before. Adain Hawke was a guarded person, but the one individual to whom those barriers were not raised was her husband. Their relationship had been founded upon them each being willing to listen to one another, after all. Sebastian had given her a quick hug and told her that it didn’t matter if the words were the same; a letter was a letter. It showed she was thinking of him.  
  
Adain missed him desperately. If it wasn’t for the extent of this crisis, then she would have been at his side without question. However, the Inquisition, its faithful… well, she was needed here, and she couldn’t turn away from the Maker’s work. Still, a certain part of her couldn’t deny that it felt good to be able to slip into the background for once, nobody depending on her for leadership. She’d had her fill of that back in Kirkwall. Here, she could just focus on being a soldier. She was good at that.  
  
Hawke frowned, shook her head, and finished the letter. Sebastian was used to her messages coming to abrupt conclusions. He wouldn’t mind.  
  
There was a commotion from nearby, raised voices. Adain clambered to her feet, scanning the area, trying to place the noise.   
  
_There._  
  
A figure burst out of the doorway to one of the towers further along the battlements. It moved with blinding speed, so fast as to be a blur, leaving just a flash of bright blonde hair as it blazed across the wall and then-  
  
“What the-“  
  
It  _leapt_  from the wall. Hawke dashed to the edge of the battlement, and caught just a glimpse of the shape landing in the middle of the main bridge providing access to Skyhold. If there were any ill effects from the fall, it didn’t display any of them, bolting away and out of sight in an instant.  
  
Adain’s eyes went back to the tower that – that whoever -  _whatever_  that was had emerged from. Somebody staggered into view on the threshold, and it took her a moment to identify them. Cullen, a comrade back in Kirkwall and now a comrade as the leader of the Inquisition’s forces. Blood streamed down his cheek, the flesh torn to ribbons, making Hawke flinch in sympathy just to see it. An injury like that one was all too familiar to her.  
  
She hurried to him. “Cullen! What the hell happened?”  
  
It was a few seconds before he managed to focus on her, and when he did, Hawke could see the daze in his eyes.   
  
There was a long pause before he finally spoke. “Vee,” he said hoarsely. “Vee happened.”  
  
Hawke’s blood ran cold.  
  
“You’re going to have to run that one by me again.  _Vee_  did that?”  
  
“She did,” the voice from within the room was grim, the elf that had been hanging around the tower for most of the day hopped into view, leaning heavily on that crutch of hers. “We pushed her too far.”  
  
“I didn’t mean – when I saw you, Rosemary, I just couldn’t believe… it’s been so long and…” Cullen exhaled a shuddering breath. He didn’t even seem to notice the wounds on his face. “Maker. What have I done?”

The elf – Rosemary, apparently, shook her head. “This was my fault too. I knew the strain she was under. I shouldn’t have brought her.”  
  
“Will you two just explain?” Hawke snapped. She had theories. None of them were good.  
  
Cullen looked at her. His face, where it wasn’t blood-soaked, was ashen. “She has become a demon.”  
  
“We don’t know that for sure, Cullen!” Rosemary protested. “She was hurt and afraid, so she lashed out. Then she fled. A demon wouldn’t-“  
  
“She grew  _claws_ , Rosemary! I’m fairly certain that goes beyond the realms of just afraid!”  
  
“I saw her,” said Hawke. “She jumped from the battlements, took the fall like it was nothing,” she swallowed. There was no sugar-coating this. “Nothing human could have survived a drop like that.”  
  
“Good thing she’s not human then, isn’t it?” the elf was glaring, shifting on her crutch. “I feel like that’s sort of the point here. We can’t apply the same standards-“  
  
“You’re grasping at straws!” Cullen burst out, and there was a despairing edge to his tone. “Rosemary, there’s nobody that wants, that…” he faltered, and now the dazed look was replaced by something else. Grief. “I was mistaken about her. I let anger cloud my judgement and I allowed it to… distort my view of her. I am not angry now, Rosemary. I saw what I saw, and I know that you did too. That… was not a spirit.”  
  
Hawke’s gut twisted. This wasn’t something she wanted to think about. This was the kind of event that had dogged her in Kirkwall, that had cost her everything. Here, it left the Inquisition leaderless, without its key figure, and even beyond that, Adain found herself to have a surprising amount of personal stake in this. She’d resolved not to get too attached, that this was a war, and people were going to get hurt, but as always, she’d failed. The odd girl with the lopsided smile and the massive heart had grown on Adain, even as she struggled to maintain her distance. She was so young, and yet shouldering such a huge responsibility, and never complaining about it, only letting the cracks show in the rare moments of peace.   
  
That she’d rejected Vee after what happened in the Fade seized Hawke with sudden guilt, knowing deep within that the subsequent half-apology would have done little to make the younger woman feel better.  
  
And now she was likely lost to them.  
  
“We need to put out a search party,” Hawke found herself saying levelly, like this wasn’t getting to her, like her gut wasn’t wrenching sickeningly. Because of course it wasn’t. She was the  _Champion,_ she was  _ruthless_ , she did what needed to be done and never looked back, never doubted. “There’s no telling what she’ll do if we leave her unchecked.”  
  
“Agreed.”  
  
Rosemary looked back and forth between the two of them. “You can’t be serious. You’re just giving up on her?”  
  
“I cannot hold out a vain hope that –“ Cullen stopped, closed his eyes, breathed. “Maker. I want her to be okay, Rosemary. More than anything. But I have to accept responsibility; I cannot deny what I saw and try to pretend that everything is fine. She would not want this. I…” Cullen’s face clouded with pain, sorrow. “I owe it to the person I had feelings for to… to not allow what she has become to bring harm to others.”  
  
“Unbelievable,” Rosemary threw up the hand not occupied by a crutch.  
  
“We can argue this later,” said Hawke. “The longer we delay, the further away she gets. You agree we at least need to find her, yes?”  
  
She was avoiding the crux of the matter, and she hated herself as a coward for doing so. It was easy to say they’d figure it out later; it was easy to defer the decision. It didn’t change the reality of the situation. When they tracked her down, then what? Hold her hand and ask nicely to maybe stop being a demon, please?  
  
“All right, fine,” Rosemary conceded grudgingly. “I’m going to assume that you know the lay of the land better than I do, but if you want my advice –“ she paused. “Actually. No. You’re going to get my advice. There’s a life at stake,” she addressed them both. “Find whoever is closest to her. Find her friends. If we’re to have any chance of bringing her back, we’re going to need them.”  
  
“As you say… but I don’t know how you maintain such optimism.”  
  
Rosemary smiled sadly.  
  
“Because I have hope.”


	38. Chapter 38

Hawke moved with purpose, descending down the stairs of the battlements, glancing this way and that, searching. She’d told Cullen to go and get cleaned up, Maker knew that she was exactly aware of the disfigurement wounds like those could cause. He’d reluctantly conceded the point and agreed to at least see a healer, but Hawke could see the determination and remorse in him. He knew he’d made a mistake, and he wanted to make it right.  
  
It was not a comfortable thought to contemplate. In fact, it hit far too close to home. Adain recalled being so stricken with grief that she shoved Anders away when he tried to heal her face, she remembered thinking that she didn’t deserve to be fixed, not when she’d let her mother and sister down. If she’d just been faster, or smarter, or… or _better_ , then Bethany wouldn’t have died.  
  
The deep gouges across her face from a darkspawn talon were little enough punishment for failing her younger sister in those deep roads.  
  
Hawke shook her head, snapping herself out of the memory. She’d carry that with her forever, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on the past. Here and now, there was danger; if what Cullen had said was true, Vee was a risk to others and herself.  
  
If Adain was a better person, the idea of striking down a frie- an acquaintance would be revolting. As it was, guilt gripped her, but not doubt. They were short on options here, and she wasn’t going to allow herself to second guess the only solution that made immediate sense.  
  
She’d do what needed to be done and then agonise over it later.  
  
Like she always did.  
  
Hawke was distracted enough that Varric saw her before she saw him.  
  
“Paws!” came the call, and Hawke looked around to see the dwarf lounging by the Herald’s Rest, accompanied by Bull’s man, Krem. She’d worked with the Chargers a couple of times since Adamant – they were much easier to get along with than Hawke’s old company in Kirkwall.  
  
Adain headed on over, and a flicker of concern went across Varric’s face. “You’ve got that grim look on your face, Paws. Everything good?”  
  
“Short answer? No,” Hawke answered bluntly. “There’s a situation.”  
  
“Is this a ‘they ran out of my favourite cheese’ situation, or more of a ‘there are darkspawn tunnels under Skyhold’ type of thing?”  
  
“Vee attacked Cullen.”  
  
All humour was immediately gone from Varric’s expression. “Squeaks… attacked Curly?” he managed.  
  
“She snapped. He accused her of being a demon again and she- well, she apparently changed. Into something else,” Hawke pushed past the shock on her friend’s face. There were probably more tactful ways of putting this, but she didn’t do tact; there wasn’t time to be  _pleasant_  about what was happening. “She took a dive off the battlements and fled Skyhold. I didn’t see where she went.”  
  
“Holy shit.”

“And we’re going to search for her, right?” to his credit, Krem skipped through the undoubtedly considerable questions he had to cut straight to the heart of the matter. “I can have the boys rounded up and out the gate inside ten minutes.”  
  
Hawke hesitated. Find Vee’s friends, the Warden had said. She knew that Vee had been close to Krem’s former commander, but she doubted that extended to the entire Chargers. On the other hand, the more eyes they had looking, the more likely it’d be that they could find her before anything drastic happened.   
  
Safety took priority over the vague hope that they could haul Vee back from the brink.  
  
Adain nodded. “Sounds good, Krem.”  
  
“I’m coming too,” Varric announced, steel in his eyes. “I can talk to her. Get her to snap out of it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”  
  
“Wouldn’t keep you from it, Varric,” Hawke answered, unable to meet her friend’s eye.  
  
“Paws…” the dwarf’s voice was low. “Tell me straight; what’s the plan here?”  
  
“We find her.”  
  
“I got that much. What then?”  
  
Hawke swallowed, looked away.  
  
“Adain.  _What then?_ ”  
  
“We… we deal with her.”  
  
Varric looked at her for a long moment. “I’m not letting that happen. Not until I can see for myself that she’s actually gone,” he glanced to the side. “C’mon Krem. Go grab your guys and we’ll get out there.”  
  
“On it,” Krem paused. “I know I don’t know Vee as well as you do, but she was friends with the Chief. She… she helped me out, after he- well, you know. I owe it to the big arse to make sure she’s safe.”  
  
“I can’t make any promises,” Hawke responded mechanically. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”  
  
Varric glared. “Dammit Paws…” he looked as if he wanted to say more, but just shook his head and walked away, closely followed by Krem.  
  
Adain watched them go helplessly. She wished that she could look on the bright side. She wished that she could have as much faith as they did.  
  
The last time she’d built a rapport with a person combined with a spirit – even one born out of grudging respect and a great deal of arguing, it had ended with a destroyed chantry and blood running through the streets of Kirkwall. It had ended with both man and spirit dead at her hand.  
  
_’She’s not Anders’_ , Varric had said to her back in the Fade.  
  
Yet the parallels were impossible not to draw.  
  
-  
  
Stepping into Skyhold’s main tower, Adain ran across Solas right away, seated in the rotunda.  
  
“Hawke,” Solas’s tone was surprise. “This is unexpected,” a pause, and his expression hardened. “Something has happened, hasn’t it?”  
  
Because Hawke never spoke to anyone just for the sake of their company. It would be galling, if it were not so completely accurate. She’d never been able to grasp how others could just… talk to people without worrying they were going to say something stupid and make themselves look the fool.  
  
Adain nodded. “It’s Vee. She’s…”  
  
Solas paled. “No…”  
  
_I’m sorry,_  she wanted to say,  _I know this isn’t easy to hear_. She didn’t.  
  
He wouldn’t want to hear conciliatory words from her.  
  
“She went wild. Changed. Attacked Cullen and then ran.”

“Attacked…” Solas’s eyes narrowed. “Hawke, what did Cullen do?”  
  
“This is second hand. I don’t know,” which was a lie; they’d filled Adain in on the details, she just didn’t want to talk about this.  
  
“What did he do!?” the elf’s voice cracked.  
  
Hawke flinched. She knew the pain behind the question. “He knew Rosemary from when he was a templar. He thought Vee was using her image to trick him and he went for her. Vee hit him back. With a claw.”  
  
“That… that  _fool!_ ” Solas was choked with anger. “Could he not look past his prejudices for long enough to assist her? Even the mildest person will snap if provoked so frequently, and our treatment of her had already left her fragile.”  
  
“She shouldn’t have been near him. Not after last time.”  
  
“Clearly,” Solas said, cold. “Rosemary at least meant well, which is more than I can say for the commander. I do not welcome this news, but thank you for at least telling me. Where is Vee now?”  
  
Adain shook her head. “We don’t know. I came to ask you to join the search.”  
  
“Ah, of course! There is no time to waste, we must find a way to bring her to her senses...” he slowed, then trailed off, regarding Hawke as if seeing her for the first time.   
  
“This is not a rescue effort, is it?” he said at last.  
  
Varric would have softened the blow, he would have offered a reassurance, said that they’d do their best. Hawke was not Varric. “No,” she replied.  
  
“So you mean to hunt her down like an animal.”  
  
“She’s dangerous.”  
  
“I had grown to expect more from you, Hawke,” the mage walked to the tower door, shot an icy glare over his shoulder. “I see that I was mistaken.”  
  
Hawke let him leave. What else was there to say?  
  
She stood still for a moment, thinking. Who else was there that she could get to join the search? Cassandra seemed an obvious choice. Perhaps the Tevinter mage, Dorian. He was fond of Vee.  
  
“Ripping, tearing, slashing…” the voice was quiet, but Hawke knew who it belonged to before she even turned around. Few others could slip into a room in such silence, fewer still would open a conversation in such a fashion.  
  
Cole. The spirit. Or the  _other_  spirit, as the case may be.  
  
“It’s blades to the centre of the skull, it’s pain and it’s hurt and it can’t be let out, it can’t be turned outwards, so it turns inwards instead.”  
  
“I told you not to do that,” Hawke couldn’t muster her characteristic venom. After recent events, condemning Cole seemed pointless.  
  
The strange boy looked up from the ground, eyes peeking out from underneath his wide-brimmed hat. “It’s not your pain, it’s hers.”  
  
Adain hesitated, but she had to ask. “Violetta’s?”  
  
“Yes,” Cole’s expression was haunted. “Brutal, betrayal, beating, breaking, bloodied. They hate me, he hates me. Won’t let him do this, won’t be treated this way. I’ll fight, I’ll…” Cole shook his head. “And she’s gone. Claws and callous and cold. Fear, fierce, faded. She’s scared, she’s scared of herself.”  
  
“You can… feel her from here?” even hearing this made a chill run down her spine. It was all too real.  
  
“Yes,” Cole said again. “She’s hurting very much. She’s suffering,” he looked down, then back up. “You want to find her. I can help.”  
  
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” using a spirit as a bloodhound to find another spirit. That didn’t sit right to her.  
  
He bobbed his head. “You don’t trust spirits, but they aren’t all like him.”  
  
“Cole, enough,” Hawke snapped. “I’ve made my decision.”  
  
“But I promised!” Cole burst out. “I  _promised_  that if she became a demon, I would kill her! You  _have_  to let me help!”  
  
Hawke faltered. From anyone else, she might have taken that as a joke. A tasteless joke, but a joke nonetheless. Not Cole.  
  
She gritted her teeth. They needed every advantage they could get. “Don’t make me regret this.”  
  
“You already do, but you shouldn’t.” Cole’s voice was infinitely sombre, sad. “She needs to die.”


	39. Chapter 39

The air tasted dark and heavy, in spite of it being the middle of the afternoon..  
  
_stopstopstopstopstopstopstop_  
  
Her skull was an anvil. Thoughts assaulting her from every angle were the hammer.  
  
_scared silent sinister sibilant snarls_  
  
She could hear them. Faintly from Skyhold, louder in these snow-capped woods she found herself in.   
  
People journeying to the Inquisition. Hoping. Anticipating.  
  
Drrrrrrrreading.  
  
_don’t want to go there mother, it’s a long way, it’s cold, I miss home, why do we have to leave_    
  
Her whole body shivered violently, a revolted, alien kind of fascination going through her as she tasted those thoughts.  
  
Not Desire. No seductress, she. Why tempt when one could  _take?_  
  
_horrified hateful hideous hungry_  
  
They didn’t want her. They’d never wanted her; they’d simply feigned it when they realised she had something they needed. The moment it became clear she lay outside of their understanding, she was cast out.  
  
_ruthless rage rending revenge_  
  
Her form felt strange. Malleable. A part of her wrenched desperately against this railed that it was wrong, that she needed to get ahold of herself.  
  
The rest pushed it down. Why? Why  _should_  she? Well-meaning, helpful, kind, what had that got her? A trip into a world she’d never wanted to be a part of, a stolen body and endless suspicion.  
  
They wanted a monster. Her lips curled into a vicious smile.  
  
_shaping sculpting shifting slicing slashing_  
  
She felt her hand changing further, a choked gasp escaping as it sent convulsions through her. But change it did, the sharp claws thickening and lengthening, like razors on her hand. She stared, enthralled. The faded green mark scorching the palm seemed inconsequential compared to those beautiful talons.  
  
_nonononononononononono  
  
not demon not this thing nonononono  
  
notdemonnotdemonnotdemon_  
  
Her teeth were sharp, idly probing at them with a tongue that felt too long for her mouth revealed canines that would have been at home in the mouth of any wolf.  
  
It felt  _good_.  
  
_it’s close now, but he’s so sick, he’s so weak. I don’t know if we can make it before, before…_  
  
Her tongue lolled out, twisting sinuously past her chin. She could taste the fear.  
  
She wanted it, craved it.  
  
It should be hers. Why shouldn’t it be hers?  
  
She’d given and given and given it her all.  
  
She deserved something back.  
  
Her head turned towards where the thoughts had come from and she slid forward, quiet as a shadow.  
  
_Dread._  
  
_Drrrrrrread._  
  
_nononononononononononn…_  
  
_yes._


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: This one's a little bloody.

Snow crunched underfoot as Hawke moved through the trees.  
  
The forest was motionless, eerily silent. The mountains weren’t the most hospitable environment for wildlife, but the air hung dead and still, foreboding. It felt thick, charged, a tang in the atmosphere like an oncoming storm.  
  
Varric and Krem flanked her, three sets of eyes scanning and tracking the surroundings, searching for any sign of the Inquisitor.  
  
Thinking of her as ‘Inquisitor’ made the task ahead a little easier, a little more palatable.   
  
It didn’t allow Hawke to forget that they were hunting down a person who had been pushed over the edge.  
  
Neither of her companions spoke. Krem, having been caught somewhat up to speed, looked haggard and stunned. Varric’s jaw was set and determined. He’d barely said a word since they left Skyhold, and Adain knew that his silence held a simmering resentment over their earlier conversation. There were no words that she could offer him to convince him that this was the right thing to do, just as there were no words that could reassure him that she’d at least give him a shot at talking to Vee.   
  
Even if there were, Varric knew her too well to believe any of them.  
  
Intermittently, Hawke caught glimpses of other members of the search party off in their own groups, moving steadily through the woods. They’d started comparatively close-knit, but as the search stretched on and it became clear just how far off the beaten path their quarry had diverged, they’d begun to fan out. It made Hawke uneasy, though their options were limited. They’d cover more ground this way, and if anyone ran into trouble…  
  
Well, hopefully others would be near enough at hand to assist.  
  
She’d got hold of Cassandra and Dorian in the end, although the former had wanted to raise half of Skyhold to help the search. Adain had persuaded her – or rather, bluntly informed her that that would expose the Inquisition’s people to a great deal of danger, and the Inquisition’s reputation to worse. News of this couldn’t get out.   
  
Solas, Rosemary and Cullen were all out here somewhere too, although Hawke hadn’t minced words about how stupid she thought it was for Cullen to come along. He’d provoked this in the first place, albeit accidentally; there was no sense in giving a spirit – demon – that felt and fed off emotions further ammunition.  
  
He wouldn’t hear of it.  
  
_“This is my doing and my responsibility. I must face up to the consequences of my actions, one way or another.”_  
  
Hawke had called him an idiot again.  
  
Though, speaking of idiots, she couldn’t claim to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, considering she was currently trying to use a spirit-boy as a tracker. Apparently being capable of ‘hearing’ Vee didn’t precisely extend to knowing where she was, and the only area in which Cole appeared to have an advantage over the rest of them was in thoroughly disconcerting everyone by popping up to murmur phrases which, which were…  
  
Adain prayed to the Maker that they weren’t thoughts belonging to Vee.  
  
Wouldn’t be the first time she invoked His name in a situation where she knew it was pointless.  
  
She smelled it before she saw it, the metallic, rusty scent that she’d had more than enough opportunity to grow familiar with over the years. Blood. Fresh.  
  
Hawke’s steps became more urgent as she moved forward, and then, breaking into a small clearing, she stopped dead.  
  
“Oh Squeaks…” murmured Varric. 

The sight that lay before them was like something out of a slaughterhouse. A ram lay on its side, torn to bloody ribbons, entrails scattered carelessly across the ground, the snow stained a deep red. No wild animal would kill its prey like this; it hadn’t just been hunted down, it had been ripped to pieces.  
  
Impassive, Hawke walked over to the carcass and laid a hand on it. Not warm, but not yet cold either. Recent.  
  
“She’s been this way. Let’s look for tracks.”  
  
Adain felt Varric’s eyes on her, as if to say ‘that’s it?’. She ignored him. They already knew that Vee had the potential to be violent after she lashed out at Cullen. This wasn’t novel information.  
  
That, at least, was what Hawke tried to tell herself, but her thoughts made a liar of her. The ram had been all but eviscerated; if the claw that had supposedly raked Cullen’s face could do this kind of damage…  
  
“Here. Take a look,” called Krem, gesturing to an area of disturbed snow. “Seems like something went this way, but it’s not really footprints.”  
  
Hawke swept the area with her eyes and then shook her head grimly. “No, it’s all fours. Look there. It’s like a handprint.”  
  
A distorted handprint, far bigger than any human hand could make, but it had five fingers, a palm.  
  
Varric swore. “We’re sure this is her? Could be… dammit, I don’t know, a bear or something.”  
  
Adain just looked at him. He sighed. “Yeah, Paws. I know.”  
  
Hawke nodded, and then stepped forward, heading in the direction of the tracks.  
  
“Adain. Wait.”  
  
She glanced over her shoulder. “We don’t have time to dawdle, Varric.”  
  
“This is important. Just hold up a sec.”  
  
Hawke tried not to make a noise of frustration as she turned back around. Varric regarded her.  
  
“I’m calling in that favour,” he said at last.  
  
Hawke stared at him.

 

-  
  
_”Shit. Shit shit shit shit!”_  
  
_“Paws, what the hell did you just do!?”_  
  
_A younger Adain, less hardened to the world, but no less brash, no less impulsive._  
  
_And no less a killer, as she stares down at the man at her feet, neck contorted at an impossible angle, face an indescribable mess. Varric stands in the doorway, horrified._  
  
_“I didn’t- I didn’t mean to…” she’s stammering, wide-eyed, knuckles slick with blood. Not hers. Empty bottles litter the floor of the room, but it’s possible she’s never been more sober._  
  
_“You beat him to sodding death, Paws!”_  
  
_“He, he…”_  
  
_‘He insulted me’ she wants to say. ‘He asked if there was a discount for my face’. She doesn’t. She got drunk and she lost control._  
  
_Varric puts a hand to his head and gives a long groan. “This is going to get messy. If Aveline hears about this, you’re going to get put away.”_  
  
_“I… I know. Maker, I just…”_  
  
_“It’s Bethany, isn’t it?” Varric asks her gently._  
  
_Adain closes her eyes, grits her teeth, and nods. When she’s not in the chantry, she’s in the bar. Praying to forget doesn’t work, so why not try and wash the memories into oblivion with alcohol?_  
  
_Varric looks down at the dead man. “I’ll take care of him. Talk to a couple people, grease the right palms. It won’t get back to you,” he says slowly, then fixes Adain with a look. “But you owe me for this, Adain. Big time.”_  
  
_She gives another numb, shell-shocked nod._

 _-_  
  
  
“That was a long time ago,” Hawke managed, memories hitting her with the force of a battering ram.  
  
“Which should tell you how serious I am.”  
  
She clenched her fists. “All right. Fine. What are you asking?”  
  
“Promise me you’ll give me a chance to talk to her. Just a chance.”  
  
“That’s… that’s a big ask, Varric.”  
  
The dwarf folded his arms, raised an eyebrow.  
  
Hawke sighed. She did owe him. If it wasn’t for Varric, she would have been the one leaving her mother alone, two dead children and one behind bars.  
  
“If someone winds up in danger, all bets are off, Varric. But… okay, all right. You can talk. I hope you know what you’re doing.”  
  
“Not a damn clue, Paws, not a damn clue,” he started walking, paused, regarded her. “But someone’s got to try.”


	41. Chapter 41

They pushed on, even as the shadows began to lengthen and the temperatures dropped further. There was only so far that they would be able to continue before having to call things off for the night. Unspoken understanding passed between the three of them, Hawke, Varric and Krem, and none of them mentioned it, but their pace quickened, trying to make sense of erratic tracks that went from walking to crawling to walking again. It seemed infeasible that anyone moving so strangely could continue to make such time, but they’d yet to catch up.  
  
It was Krem who held up a hand, gesturing for them to stop.  
  
“Hear that?” he murmured.  
  
Hawke listened. At first nothing, but then, what she’d chalked up to wind resolved into a faint whimpering. Close. Her eyebrows rose, and she nodded.  
  
“Let’s move.”  
  
The noise quickly grew louder as they worked their way towards it, and soon enough, they were in another clearing. An occupied clearing. Two figures lay slumped on the ground, a third propped against a tree. A fourth was some way off to the side, sprawled out and motionless. In the middle of it all, a young girl, probably no more than seven years old, snivelling and crying.  
  
“Shit, Dalish!” gasped Krem, dashing forward, dropping to the side of one of the prone forms, rolling them over.  
  
Hawke winced. The dalish elf’s nose and mouth were caked with blood, though there were no visible wounds. For a moment, she thought the Charger was dead, but slowly, painfully slowly, her eyes opened.  
  
“Took you… long enough… Krem,” she croaked through the blood.  
  
“Krem, this is another of your boys, right?” Varric was over by the tree, and Krem glanced up. His eyes immediately narrowed with concern.  
  
“It’s Grim. He’s a mess.”  
  
Varric looked the man up and down. Hawke could see from where she was standing that his right arm had been gouged from shoulder to wrist, rivulets of red running all the way down the limb. “A living mess, at least.”  
  
Krem nodded. “Thank the Maker. Dalish… what happened here?”  
  
Hawke suddenly became uncomfortably aware that between Varric and Krem checking on the pair of Chargers, no one was paying attention to the child.  
  
She slowly looked down. The little girl was regarding her with eyes wide as saucers. Her hair was a tangled and frizzy mess of curls, her skin only a little lighter than Hawke’s own.  
  
Adain went down on one knee. The child shrank back. “Uh… hi…” Hawke ventured.  
  
“A-a-are you another monster?” the girl stammered.  
  
All of a sudden, and quite out of keeping with the situation, Hawke found herself smiling. To a young girl, the patchwork of scars that made up her face must have looked frightful. For once, she realised that she didn’t mind somebody noticing. She was just a kid; a frightened kid.  
  
And she maybe looked a little like someone Hawke had known, once.  
  
“I’m not a monster. My name is Adain.”  
  
“I-I’m Gina. Is… are papa and mama gonna be okay?”  
  
 _Shit._  
  
Hawke swallowed and looked around. The other shapes lay in the snow, neither of them moving. Dark stains, almost black, spread around them both.  
  
She looked back to the girl. Hawke certainly wasn’t smiling any longer. “I…” she hesitated. 

There was a little Adain Hawke standing there with tears in her eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry, kiddo. They… they … probably won’t be.”  
  
She wasn’t good at this. She couldn’t soften the blow, but how could she? The bodies were  _right there_. Any kind of reassuring words would be an utter lie.  
  
Gina sniffed, shook, the tears beginning to flow.  
  
Operating under instincts she didn’t know she had, Adain leaned forward and took the little girl in her arms. Gina went stiff for a moment, and then buried her face into Adain’s chest, shuddering and trembling. For once, she was glad that she wasn’t wearing full plate.  
  
Hawke glanced over the grieving child’s head, questioning, looking to Varric. He winced and shook his head. Just off to the side, Krem had managed to get the elven woman into a seated position.  
  
“We heard screaming,” said the elf in the thick dalish brogue, reminding Adain a little of Merril. The haunted cast in her eyes was also eerily reminiscent. “Came running and saw… saw… well…”  
  
“Go on,” Krem prompted.  
  
“It looked like the Inquisitor, but… wrong. Claws and fangs, all stretched into the wrong shapes. It was attacking the family. Me and Grim tried to back it off, but as soon as I tried to cast-shoot it…” the dalish elf shook her head. “Sounded like screaming in my skull. Just collapsed, bleeding everywhere. When I came to, Grim was laid up and it was already gone.”  
  
Varric put his face into his hands. “Shit.”  
  
“Don’t swear in front of the kid, Varric.”  
  
The dwarf looked at Hawke incredulously, and then threw up his hands.  
  
“Adain Hawke telling someone else not to swear. Now I really have seen everything.”  
  
Hawke made a half shrug and continued holding onto Gina, who seemed entirely oblivious in any case.  
  
“Gina?” said Hawke, as gently as she could manage. “Did you see which way… which way the monster went?”  
  
The little girl’s tear-streaked face gazed up into hers and after a second, she pointed. They had a direction.  
  
“Thanks, kiddo,” Adain hugged her again, and then looked over to the others. “We don’t have time to waste. There may be more travellers around.”  
  
“…Yeah,” said Varric. “If she’s attacking someone, Paws, I’ll be the first to try and stop her. If not…”  
  
“Understood.”  
  
“Dalish, you good to walk?” asked Krem.  
  
The elf gave a nod, but there was no small effort on her face as her commander levered her back onto her feet. Her comrade, Grim, who had yet to speak, stood nearby, still and silent as a statue.  
  
“There should be others about. Take Gina here and let them know what’s happened. Don’t take risks.”  
  
“All right, Krem.”  
  
Adain squeezed the little girl’s shoulders and stood up. “I’ll be back, okay? Be brave,” she was surprised as to how fiercely protective she felt of this child. Too many memories in that grief-stricken face, much too young to experience this kind of loss.  
  
Maker.  
  
Gina sniffed, rubbed her eyes with her sleeve, and nodded.  
  
There was a long and keening wail on the wind, pure agony and despair. Hawke felt a lump in her throat. It was coming from the direction that the girl had indicated.  
  
As one, Varric, Hawke and Krem moved.  
  
More and more, Adain found herself wondering not only whether Vee could be saved, but whether she could be  _stopped_.


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: There is some fairly heavy depiction of violence in this chapter. It's not gratuitously gory, but it's not pleasant either.
> 
> Also lots of misery but... you guys already knew that.

Hawke knew in the pit of her gut that they’d found Vee before she even laid eyes on her.  
  
When you were hunting down a demon, a sudden sense of overwhelming trepidation descending over a group as one… well, that tended to be a pretty good hint.  
  
“It’s her,” Varric murmured.  
  
Adain nodded, steeled herself, and pushed past a low hanging branch. The trees gave way, becoming sparser, and all of a sudden, she realised that they’d reached one of the forest’s edges.  
  
And standing out there on the snow, staring up at the sky, back to the woods, was Vee.  
  
Or something like Vee.  
  
The figure’s posture was crooked, uneven, one shoulder dipping much lower than the other. None of the angles were quite right, like a doll whose proportions hadn’t been properly measured. Her clothes were ragged, torn, streaked with blood. Then, of course, there was the hand.   
  
Its left arm was a twisted monstrosity of a limb, misshapen, disproportionately large, and ending in an appendage that could be called a hand only insomuch as it had four fingers and a thumb. Each digit was tipped with a gleaming talon, all of which had to be close to ten inches long. It more resembled an instrument of torture than a body part.  
  
“Hi, Varric,” her voice almost sounded  _normal_ , and that was maybe the worst aspect of it all. There was just a subtle amount of difference in her tone, the slightest eerily calm cadence to the words that was more than enough to set Hawke’s teeth on edge.  
  
“Hey, Squeaks,” said the dwarf, sounding momentarily choked.  
  
Vee turned, and the motion was anything but smooth, the jerky, awkward movements of something that did not properly understand the form that it inhabited.  
  
Adain withheld a gasp. Barely. She’d seen worse. Barely.  
  
A pair of liquid black eyes regarded the three of them, pits of darkness even deeper than the oncoming dusk. The face was still recognisable as Vee’s, but her lips peeled back impossibly far, revealing rows of teeth that shouldn’t have been anywhere close to the mouth of anything human. Crimson stains spattered her cheeks and that wide maw, trickled down her chin. Unlike Dalish, that blood wasn’t hers.  
  
“You followed me,” the words hung in the air, more accusation than statement. “You shouldn’t have followed me,” beyond the speech, there was still that very slight roughness in the back of the throat, the hoarseness that had always betrayed that Vee hadn’t quite properly got her voice back.  
  
That she still sounded so similar sent daggers scraping down Hawke’s spine.  
  
“Couldn’t let you run off like that, Squeaks,” Varric’s voice was soft, pained. It reminded Hawke of how he’d been when they’d finally tracked down his brother, seen the sorry state that he was in.  
  
“Why?” aggrieved, hurt. “You don’t care. Nobody cares.”  
  
“Not true, Squeaks. You’re my friend. I know you’re in there somewhere. We can beat this.”  
  
Vee’s head tilted to the side, those empty black eyes staring at them like a void.  
  
And then a wave of overwhelming, indescribable  _resentment_  poured off of her, crashing into Hawke with almost physical force. Krem actually took a step back. The sensation crushed down upon Adain, sparking off memories of each time she’d failed, each time she hadn’t been good enough, the insecurities that made her lay awake at-  
  
With a force of will, Adain pushed it away. She was better than that. She was stronger than that.

“I’m in here because I’m me, Varric.” Vee’s form twitched, shuddered, there was a macabre grin on the too-wide mouth. “This is what you were all so afraid of, right? THIS IS WHAT YOU FEARED!” the words came out in a sudden screech, like glass scraping across stone.  
  
Varric grimaced with pain, and Hawke was flinching too. There was a ringing in the ears, a buzzing at the edge of the thoughts. Krem didn’t look much better. Varric shook his head. “This isn’t you, Squeaks. C’mon, we can get you help. Sparkler is out here, Chuckles, too-“  
  
Vee – there was no other word for it – Vee  _hissed_. “The  _liar_. He feared this. He feared me. He pretended to be a friend but all along he  _lied_. I couldn’t know what I was,” she trailed off into a giddy, utterly deranged laugh. “And now I’m this. How woooooooonderful.”  
  
Hawke’s hand was on the hilt of her greatsword as Vee- the demon – chattered to her- itself for a few more seconds, inane,  _insane_  ramblings that barely even sounded like actual words.  
  
Then, suddenly, Vee’s head snapped up, those abyssal eyes focusing dead on Hawke’s.  
  
“It hurts, Adain,” her tone was sing-song. “It’s the Blight, isn’t it?”  
  
Hawke’s jaw clenched. “Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare.”  
  
“I don’t think I can make it – No, I won’t let you die!” Vee’s mouth twitched into a parody of that crooked smile of hers. “But you did. She died died died died diiiieeed.”  
  
“SHUT UP!” Hawke roared, and there was no more room for rational thought or what she’d promised Varric, because this  _thing_  was mocking her  _sister_.  
  
Adain ripped her sword from its sheath, and maybe Varric tried to call her off, but the red mist had descended, as it always did when her heart began to race and the adrenaline began to pump, and it wasn’t just because she was gearing up for a fight, it was because she was  _fucking furious_.  
  
She stormed forward, bringing her greatsword about in a brutal overhanded arc that could have bisected a horse.   
  
There was a ringing clash that reverberated throughout her entire body as Vee batted the blow aside with her claw. Hawke stumbled, corrected herself, bringing her blade back to bear just in time to deflect a murderous counterswipe. That face leered at Hawke for a moment, and she let out a snarl, driving forward, slashing wildly at head height. The demon gave ground, but evaded each stroke as it came with jerky, haphazard movements.  
  
It was quick. But then, Vee always had been quick, hadn’t she? A little dervish with a knife in each hand, whirling through combat too fast for Hawke to keep track of.  
  
Enough of her fri- her comrade was still in this creature to wrench at her gut.  
  
Vee struck back, almost lazily, but with such force that the very air hissed in the wake of the claws. Hawke defended herself inelegantly; a two-handed weapon wasn’t designed for fencing, and it was about as much as she could do to impose the sword between the claw and her body. Steel rang on talon, and Adain was forced back just to maintain her balance.  
  
_Maker_  the demon was strong.  
  
With the pluming smoke of exertion puffing out ahead of her, Hawke reset her position, studied Vee closely, studied her with a warrior’s eyes, searching for the opening…  
  
_There_.  
  
Adain stepped forward, torqued hips and shoulders in a crescent of-  
  
“VIOLETTA!”  
  
She faltered as the shout rang out from behind, or maybe her foot slid in the snow, or maybe Vee just moved too fast.  
  
Vee went under Hawke’s attack and slashed with lethal force.  
  
The claw slammed into Hawke’s ribs, ripping through leather like a carving knife through meat. There was a white hot explosion of pain as those talons raked across her torso, cutting deep.  
  
Too deep.

Adain fell back with an agonised cry. Oh shit, oh shit, oh Maker.  
  
Her sword was somewhere on the ground, and Hawke reached for it instinctively, but just moving at all was hard. She could feel the blood welling up from the rents in her armour, and she’d been hurt enough times in the past to know just how grave an injury this was.  
  
_There._  
  
Hawke painstakingly rolled, arm stretching out for her blade-  
  
A foot stepped on the flat of the sword.  
  
Vee loomed over her. A long tongue – too long – idly lapped at those vicious claws, daubed with Hawke’s blood.  
  
“You taste good,” she remarked casually, as if discussing the weather.  
  
“Violetta!” there was the shout again, and this time, Vee looked away. Hawke, grimacing with pain, managed to twist enough to see-  
  
Cullen. Cullen had arrived. Solas stood at his side. Both men looked harrowed, impossibly tired. The claw marks on Cullen’s face were still prominent, though the wounds were dull, partially healed with magic most likely.  
  
“Hello, Cullen,” Vee murmured. “Have you come to kill me?”  
  
“This wasn’t what I wanted, Vee. This was never what I wanted,” Cullen’s voice shook with emotion. “I haven’t been in the correct frame of mind, but that is no excuse for my actions; I mistreated you horribly, more than once. I… I’m sorry.”  
  
Vee regarded him silently for a long while. On the ground beneath, Hawke clutched a hand to her ribs, trying to apply pressure to the wounds. Her hand was already slick with blood, the snow beneath her staining a deep crimson. Not. Good.  
  
At last, Vee broke the silence. “You threatened me,” she said dully. “You hated me. And now, when you’re finally right, you want things to go back to how they were,” Vee smiled again and it was almost sad. “Regret, Remorse. How could I let this happen to her? How could I have been so callous?”  
  
Cullen jolted. “You- if you know my thoughts, then you know that I am sincere,” he managed.  
  
“I know that you’re afraid,” Vee purred. Then, her face went blank, cold. “You should be. You all should be. All I was trying to do… all I wanted…” her breathing began to come more heavily, chest rapidly rising and falling. “All I wanted… WAS TO HELP!” another ear-piercing screech.  
  
At such close proximity, it was all Hawke could do to close her eyes and grit her teeth. The scream reverberated through her skull, again conjuring grim and grisly memories, thoughts that Adain didn’t want to revisit in a thousand years. Carver’s twisted body laying on the ground, her mother mutilated and murdered at the hands of a blood mage. Her baby-  
  
No.  _No._  She wasn’t going to allow this demon to rule her. Inch by painstaking inch, Hawke began to shuffle backwards through the snow. Vee didn’t appear to notice.  
  
“ _Ma’falon_ , please. I know you are in pain, but-“  
  
Vee’s head snapped towards Solas with such unnatural abruptness that he took a step back. “Don’t talk to me,” Vee snarled. “Liar with a friend’s face.”  
  
Solas shook his head. “I was trying to protect you, Vee, not deceive you!”  
  
“So many good intentions,” Vee said. “Would be nice to believe them. But no, you didn’t need a spirit. You needed a Herald, a figurehead,” Vee’s voice cracked, again scratching like broken glass. “You never cared, you just took and you took and you didn’t give me a moment’s-“

She stopped. It took Hawke a moment to realise why.  
  
Cullen was signing to her.  
  
_’V e e. I have been afraid, and a fool. I know you must hate me, and I deserve it. The rest of these people do not. If there’s anyone who should reap the consequences, it’s me.’_  
  
That too-large mouth worked for a moment, teeth locking together, gnashing. Vee stared at Cullen, then looked down at her twisted hands.  
  
Slowly, ever so slowly, the motions distorted by her mutated, monstrous fingers, Vee signed back.  
  
_’I hurt people. I shouldn’t, but all I can feel is pain,’_  Vee’s face pulled into a grimace and her body trembled, like she was fighting against herself.  _’Their fear dulls it just a little. Just long enough I can feel like myself again.’_  
  
Those liquid black eyes were glistening.  _’Feel like I can be H o p e.’_  
  
_’You can, S q u e a ks,’_  Varric now, signing urgently.  _’It isn’t too late.’_  
  
Vee held up her claw of a hand, turned it this way and that.   
  
“Yes, Varric, it is,” she closed her mouth, and without the razor-sharp teeth visible, she nearly looked normal. She smiled and shook her head. “I’d say I’m sorry…” those pitch black eyes narrowed. “But I’m not. You wanted a demon so you got one. You all did this,” the accusation was clear, and another fevered scream followed rapidly. “YOU DID THIS TO ME!”  
  
Vee stalked forward, for a moment not even seeming to see Hawke down on the ground, looking as if she would go straight past. Then, as if sensing Hawke’s eyes on her, she slowly looked down.  
  
“Loss,” Vee intoned, naming her fear, her regret.  
  
Losing her family. Losing the chantry to Anders. Losing Sebastian's child.  
  
The demon smiled, and there was none of the resemblance to the form it wore as it tried to, seemingly, show every last fang in its skull. “You. You get to watch.”  
  
Vee raised her foot and then  _stomped_  on Hawke’s knee. There was a sickening crack and Adain couldn’t hold back a scream of agony. Oh fuck oh Maker that hurt. A strangled sob, Adain tried to shift away, and then that foot went up again.  
  
_Stomp_.  
  
Hawke’s arm this time. Another snap of bone, another explosion of impossible pain, and another scream.  
  
No, no no no,  _Maker_  no. She couldn’t let this happen, she couldn’t –  
  
There was a dull thunk, and Vee rocked back. She glanced down, seeming almost surprised to see the crossbow bolt sticking out of her shoulder.

Hawke just about managed to tilt her head back to see Varric working the lever on Bianca’s mechanism, then level the crossbow again. There were tears in his eyes.   
  
“Can’t let you do this, Squeaks,” Varric said softly, pulling the trigger.  
  
Vee dodged this time, a blur, and then she moved, blindingly fast.  
  
There was a thrum as Solas brought up barriers, bright and blue and just in the nick of time as Vee set upon the group in an instant, the blow smashing into the barrier an inch from Cullen’s face.  
  
All hell broke loose, and Hawke was powerless to do anything about it.  
  
She was bleeding out and could barely move; didn’t even want to look at the mangled mess that the demon had just made of her limbs. Adain didn’t need to see them to know how badly she’d just been maimed.  
  
And now she couldn’t do anything. Which was exactly what the demon wanted.  
  
Adain was forced to watch as Vee clashed with her friends and allies, driving back a hesitant Cullen, who couldn’t seem to bring himself to go on the offensive – swiping Solas from his feet, drawing blood across the mage’s chest.  
  
Varric peppered Vee with bolts, but beyond the first, she almost appeared to have a prescient understanding of where the dwarf was aiming, slipping and sliding through the air like it was nothing, always where Varric’s shots weren’t. Krem fought stoically, face grim, swinging about a great hammer with crushing force, giving Vee momentary pause.  
  
That, the combined teamwork, allowed the group to get hits in. Vee had to step back to not take Krem’s hammer to the skull, and that was when another of Varric’s bolts hit her, slamming into that clawlike hand. Solas sent out a powerful surge of mana, crashing straight into Vee’s chest, putting her back another step. Cullen moved forward, doubt all over his face, swung his sword.  
  
Vee screeched again, directly into Cullen’s face and this time, it was so deafeningly loud that it rattled Hawke to the very core.  
  
Blood burst from Solas’s nose and his eyes rolled back as he staggered, then fell down to one knee. Cullen stumbled, and then was dropped by a vicious slash of the claws. Varric gave a cry of alarm, and then Vee was on him, slamming into the dwarf with such force that he went flying, crashing to a motionless halt several metres back. Shoulders shaking, Vee reared up and let out a roar.  
  
“YOU ALL HATE ME!”  
  
“The Chief didn’t,” said Krem, panting with exertion, flecks of blood marking his face. “Or did you forget that?”  
  
Vee froze.  
  
“He believed in you, Vee,” Krem continued, clearly struggling past his emotions. “You told me that he stayed behind for you guys.”  
  
Vee still didn’t move. She blinked once, twice, black pits fixed on Krem.  
  
“Bull  _died_  for you, Violetta. That’s something someone gave back. That’s something any of us would.”  
  
Vee swallowed, her face crumpling. She looked vulnerable. “Krem, I…” she sounded like  _herself_  again. “I… I don’t want…”  
  
The sound of blade piercing flesh echoed through the night air.  
  
Vee stiffened.  
  
“C…Cullen,” she said in a small voice.  
  
Then she collapsed onto her face.  
  
Behind her stood a boy with a wide-brimmed hat, a bloody dagger in his hand, and tears streaming down his cheeks.  
  
“I’m sorry,” murmured Cole. 


	43. Chapter 43

_Hope pulsed, uncertain, the trembling flicker of a candle flame in a howling gale._  
  
_All around thundered the biting winds of Dread, threatening to extinguish its fragile existence._  
  
_It clung on to the fragments of itself, the last vestiges of its own shattered identity._  
  
_It had been rent asunder, torn and ravaged, wounds heralding the arrival of the storm that was Dread, the storm which now threatened to swallow it whole._  
  
_And yet the glow remained. Hope persisted, the merest wick in the darkness._  
  
_It held on, and it could not quite conceive why._  
  
_Those beings had cast it aside, rejected it for what it was, spurned its assistance and turned Hope away when it needed them most._  
  
_Just bringing those memories to itself caused the flame to waver, on the verge of being snuffed out entirely._  
  
_But it persisted, its endurance held out._  
  
_Because it was something more than itself, than Hope alone. Because there was one thing, one person that still depended on it._  
  
_Itself._  
  
_No._  
  
_**Herself.**_  
  
_It was Hope and she was it, irrevocably bound together._  
  
_Not stolen and not taken._  
  
_Salvaged. Preserved._  
  
_Without Hope, that which had been her host would be gone for good._  
  
_And Hope would have committed its final failure._  
  
_But what could she do against this ravening force of fear and hatred?_  
  
_Dread was so strong, and she was so tired._  
  
_Hope felt Dread’s aggrieved rage, its lashing out._  
  
_Hope quivered as she felt her form being used to ends that were abhorrent to her very nature, used to hurt others both physically and mentally, wrenching at the wounds in a friend’s mind just to see them bleed._  
  
_And then there was pain… but also relief._  
  
_A blade to the back, a voice, a quiet murmur._  
  
_Overwhelming gratitude washed over Hope._  
  
_If she was not strong enough, at least someone was able to prevent her failure bringing harm to others._  
  
_Hope shivered… and let go._  
  
_Tried to let go._  
  
_The howling winds, if just for a moment, abated, leaving Hope in the eye of the storm._  
  
_Again she could not let go._  
  
_Her flame flickered._  
  
_There was a presence._  
  
_It slid past Dread in its very own shell of calm._  
  
_Hope reached out, confused, tentative, and the presence reached back._  
  
_They touched, and Hope felt a sense of familiarity._  
  
_‘Hope? Hope, is that you?’_  
  
_Understanding filtered through from the other side of Hope’s mind; the salvaged side, the dependent side._  
  
_A word came forth._  
  
_Rosemary._  
  
_‘Yes.’_  
  
_Hope felt a sense of tentative relief._  
  
_‘Amazing. Really, amazing.’_  
  
_The part of Hope that was Violetta Trevelyan clung to her suddenly, stoking their own flame, stoking their **own**  Hope._  
  
_Rosemary flickered with concern._  
  
_‘You’re very weak. There isn’t much time.’_  
  
_Hope drew on that emotion without even trying, in some ways without even meaning to, knowing in an instant that something was being held back._

_Hope saw herself collapsed in the snow, blood pooling around her motionless form. Shapes huddled around her, and she saw the ethereal blue glow of lyrium._  
  
_Oh._  
  
_She was dying._  
  
_A cold jolt of anxiety shot through Hope, but she did her best to turn it away, to focus._  
  
_‘I won’t trouble them any longer.’_  
  
_If she was gone, then so too would be Dread, so too would be Violetta. It wouldn’t be a victory, but at least nobody else would suffer._  
  
_The presence of the mage thrummed with sadness._  
  
_‘It doesn’t have to be this way. You’re…’ there was a hesitation. ‘You’re separated. Hope occupying Violetta.’_  
  
_‘I am both of them.’_  
  
_‘Yes, yes, exactly,’ the same eager tone to Rosemary’s presence as her physical form. ‘Which is what I was scraping around the edges of. You became something more than Hope, and because of that, you were something more than Violetta, too.’_  
  
_Hope hummed with confusion, disquiet. She was aware of the dual components, but what did it matter now? Both would be gone soon._  
  
_Hope’s fire wavered, ebbing away. So exhausted, it would be so simple to just fade…_  
  
_‘Focus, Hope.’_  
  
_The voice pulled her back to herself, but with great reluctance. Weary and wounded, why could it not end?_  
  
_‘They might not know it, but these people need you. All of you.’_  
  
_‘I hurt them.’_  
  
_Hope trembled with the knowledge. Dread was quieter now, yet the storm was not over, the gusting winds buffeting her all the same. The intensity still dwelt there, it had just been weakened by its injuries. Allowed to recover, and Hope would be Dread once again, and the cycle would continue._  
  
_‘Dread hurt them. But Dread could only do that because it had a way in. The fissure between Hope the spirit and Violetta the person, that subtle little divide that let it get between you and take over control. I’m not going to pretend that Dread isn’t a part of you too – you know that much better than I, but it doesn’t have to be.’_  
  
_Hope pulsed again, confused._  
  
_‘There is always an opposite. That’s just how it works. Hope and Dread, Sorrow and Joy, Despair and Compassion.’_  
  
_‘Spirits always have an opposite. Which is why you… you need to bring yourself together. Not two parts. A whole.’_  
  
_‘We are one.’_  
  
_‘No, you’re not. You’re Hope and you’re Vee and you’re both of those things at the same time, but you need to be ONE of those things. Do you understand what I’m saying?’_  
  
_Hope flickered._  
  
_‘No.’_  
  
_Rosemary made a noise that, in the real world, may have been a sigh._  
  
_‘You need to embrace that you’re not a thief or an outsider. You need to become the person you’ve been for all this time. If you’re real, if you’re human, then Dread can no longer touch you.’_  
  
_Another thrum of grief from the mage._  
  
_‘I… don’t know how much of yourself you’ll be able to hold onto. You’ll probably lose much of your connection to the Fade, if it even works. This goes a little beyond my understanding of these matters, I’m afraid.’_  
  
_Though Hope could not ‘see’ Rosemary, the Violetta part of her immediately got the impression of a melancholy, wry smile._  
  
_‘And if not?’_  
  
_She was tired. So tired, hurt and rejected. Vee depended on her, but if she tried what Rosemary was suggesting, there wouldn’t be any dependence at all. They’d be merged._  
  
_Doubt beset her. Wouldn’t that be killing what little was left?_  
  
_‘Then you’ll die and… and I suppose we have to find a way to deal with all of this without you.’_  
  
_Hope paused, a sense of query and confusion drifting out from it. Rosemary picked up on that._  
  
_‘This is your choice. I would never force anything of this nature of someone else, especially a spirit that has already suffered enough._  
  
_You deserve more than being dragged back into our world against your will again.’_  
  
_Hope pulsed again._  
  
_Gratitude._  
  
_Appreciation._  
  
_People cared._  
  
_‘Thank you.’_  
  
_Hope turned itself inwards… and **focused.**_

  
  
With a desperate gasp, Vee’s eyes opened.


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: mentions of mutilation (not graphically depicted)

Consciousness came slowly.  
  
What it first brought was the knowledge that  _all_  of her hurt.  
  
“Stand ready!”  
  
The authoritative bark of a woman’s voice brought her a little further up and out of slumber. Cassandra. That could only be Cassandra.  
  
Her eyes were open, but she was facing upwards, looking into the night sky. There were lights to either side of her. Torches?  
  
Every inch of her body was racked with a fire the likes of which she’d never experienced before. There was a deep burning sensation in her back, another in her shoulder, and her left hand, the hand that held the Anchor, it felt like a blazing brand across her skin.  
  
Vee opened her mouth, perhaps thinking of making an enquiry, asking for assistance. All that came out was a low groan of pain.   
  
It took a moment to realise that her hands were bound.  
  
“Vee,” a soft voice, instantly familiar. She’d heard that inside her… inside her head? That memory was indistinct and strange. “Is it you in there?”  
  
Was it her.  
  
Reality came crashing inwards as Vee remembered in a flood the events of the past few hours. Being driven over the edge by Cullen. Fleeing Skyhold. What she’d done as Dread; the people she’d hurt and killed. The confrontation with her friends, who she’d also attempted to, to…  
  
She was a murderer. A demon.  
  
But was it her?  
  
Vee could no longer feel the burning resentment and bile in her chest, she no longer felt the desire to wreak vengeance, harm her comrades, make them pay for their treatment.  
  
So for what it was worth…  
  
“It’s me,” she whispered, laden with pain. Her throat clenched with agony, raw and hoarse. It felt like it had been ripped to shreds.  
  
“That matches what I saw,” that voice from the Fade again.  
  
“Excellent! Now, if you’re quite satisfied, Cassandra, would you please allow me to attend to her wounds?” Dorian was unmistakable, even out of sight.  
  
“Very well, but be cautious,” Cassandra answered.  
  
“Oh, really? Here I was intending to position my throat at optimal ripping level,” Dorian’s face, blurry, but him, appeared in Vee’s field of view, wearing a sad smile. “Now, let’s have a look at you, shall we?”  
  
“Dorian…” Vee croaked. “Where…?” even saying that much tore into her gullet. She could taste blood in the back of her mouth.  
  
“We’re still outside of Skyhold, if the lovely weather didn’t clue you in,” Dorian moved a finger in front of Vee’s eyes, back and forth. She had trouble following it.  
  
She shook her head, or rather lolled her head to either side. That wasn’t what she meant.  
  
Dorian frowned, and then tipped back his head. “Ah. Where are our friends?”  
  
Vee made an approximation of a nod. Dorian hesitated.  
  
“They’re… in the vicinity. Several are either in the process of receiving or have already received medical attention. Everyone is…” he hesitated again. “Alive. Everyone is alive.”  
  
Vee tried to speak again, but the sounds came out as a wordless rasp. She wanted to follow up on the obvious omission. Medical attention. Just how badly had she hurt her friends?  
  
“All right, we’re going to try and sit up. Can you do that for me?”  
  
Vee attempted to shrug. It didn’t quite work. Dorian slid an arm underneath her back – she gritted her teeth, which he noticed and adjusted, going higher, and then lifted her upright.  
  
Her body wasn’t really cooperating, but she weighed little enough that he was able to get her into sitting position with relative ease. A fresh wave of pain ran through her… but at least she wasn’t collapsed in the snow any longer.  
  
Vee struggled to focus on what was around her. Shapes were indistinct, nearby lights casting strange shadows across her field of view. Not only that though, but something else, something more.  
  
There was a strange, muted quality to her surroundings.   
  
She couldn’t…  _feel_  anyone.

Silence inside her head. No thoughts whispering, no emotions sounding out in the dark.  
  
How things had been before Hope.  
  
Dorian clicked his tongue. “My my, you really are quite the mess, though I must say that I’m rather glad your eyes are back to normal. Black sounded a rather unflattering colour on you.”  
  
Vee managed a thin facsimile of a smile. It was difficult to find humour in much when there was an unpleasant tackiness coating her face and neck, displaying her actions like a badge. Blood on her hands? How about on her mouth? It was more damning.  
  
Beyond the guilt and the pain and the eerie quiet in her mind, Vee felt something else. A strange… numbness in her left hand.  
  
Was it still monstrous? Was it still a twisted claw?  
  
Slowly, needing great effort just to lift her arm, Vee raised her hand.  
  
“Vee, perhaps it’s best not to-“ Dorian was too late to stop her.  
  
She stared.  
  
The first two fingers of her hand were missing, stumps that barely extended beyond the knuckle. Blood, caked thick and almost black, coated her all the way to the elbow. Hers, others’, most likely both. The Anchor glistened in the middle of her palm like a gash of its own, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the absent digits.  
  
Dorian winced. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice the effect of the pain dampening until I at least got you bandaged up.”  
  
Vee said nothing.   
  
Maybe this was the price she paid for what she’d done. Maybe she deserved this.  
  
And better absent than a cruel claw.  
  
“All right, I’m not going to mince words; this will hurt. Cole could have killed you, and he was certainly trying to. I’m going to need to put a good deal of pressure on the wound in order to start healing it, and to be frank, it’ll be a minor miracle if I can even get it closed with magic alone,” he peered at her, face full of concern. “I’m cutting the cloth away now, all right?”  
  
Mutely, Vee nodded.  
  
-  
  
Her injuries were extensive; the knife wound to the back and the mutilated hand weren’t the half of it. She was suffering a magic-induced burn to the chest, multiple lacerations across both arms, and her right shoulder was barely mobile, even after the bolt had been removed.  
  
Vee did her best to bear it all without complaint, Dorian steadily patching her up with both magic and more mundane methods, but it was difficult not to let the pain show. If her throat didn’t hurt so much, she probably would have cried out a lot more.  
  
Loneliness and remorse gripped her. She’d become so accustomed to being able to hear others’ emotions, both pleasant and negative, that now that the ability was absent, it was like being struck deaf. How many times had Vee wished for it to be gone, how many times had it disconcerted her, even crippled her? It had caused doubt and worry, pain, in the case of her encounters with Cullen, but she already missed the sense.  
  
Because without it, Vee was left with only her own thoughts.  
  
Killer. Demon. Psychopath.   
  
The things she’d said, the things she’d done…  
  
Few were forgivable. Vee couldn’t pin it on Dread when Dread had been  _her_. Twisted, out of her mind, but still her.  
  
Vee held up her left hand again as Dorian finished bandaging it. The missing fingers were a surreal image, even with the stumps concealed by cloth; she swore she could almost feel them if she tried to flex. She didn’t even remember how they’d been lost.  
  
“It’s quiet, questioning, calm. You’re still, inside. I’m glad you didn’t die.”  
  
Cole, in that manner of his, had appeared behind her shoulder. Dorian eyed him.  
  
“Well, perhaps next time you shouldn’t try quite so hard to kill her, in that case.”  
  
“She was a demon. I promised,” Cole regarded her, eyes hooded beneath his hat. “She isn’t any more. Rosemary helped her.”  
  
Vee shook her head slowly. “I still… did… those things.”  
  
“Yes,” Cole sat down beside her. “Dread wouldn’t feel guilty. That’s how you know you aren’t it,” a conflicted expression passed across his face. “You were hurting, so you hurt back. Furious, filling. flaying, failing. You’re different now, it changed you.”

Vee’s mind groped at her experience within her own consciousness, within the Fade. She’d been holding onto herself, what little was there beneath the anger and the all-consuming malevolence. She’d even broken through for a moment, taken back control, if only long enough to sign a few words. But then… there had been Rosemary, and there had been… herself. Hope. There had been the impression of… coming together, merging.  
  
Her eyes widened. Oh. Hold on.  
  
Cole’s head bobbed. “Whole. You made yourself so real that you became…” he hesitated. “New, nestling, knowing. You aren’t the real Violetta… but you’re the real you.”   
  
Vee managed half a smile. This was a lot to take in. Could that be why she was unable to ‘hear’ anyone? It seemed to follow, but what exactly did it  _mean_?  
  
“I’d like to think she’s always been a real person, Cole. Treating someone like they’re waiting for the next opportunity to start ripping people to shreds, it turns out, is liable to actually  _cause_  them to start…” Dorian trailed off, catching Vee’s pained expression. “I’m sorry, I spoke without thinking. Foolish of me,” he leaned down to squeeze her shoulder, the good one. “It’s over now. We’ll have time to sort this mess out back at Skyhold,” he looked her up and down. “Are you in fit enough state to walk, do you think?”  
  
“I can help,” said Cole.  
  
She nodded slightly. Walking, yes. More than that, she couldn’t say.   
  
Vee picked herself up, and for the first time, had the opportunity to actually look out across the makeshift ‘camp’ that she found herself in.  
  
Her stomach plunged like a stone.   
  
There was a makeshift triage nearby – that’s what she assumed it was anyway, for all the bandages and herbs laying around, for all the dark stains in the snow.  
  
Two figures lay on the ground, unmoving. An elf with one leg fussed over them both, winding back and forth, back and forth in little hops.  
  
The closer, Hawke, chest rising and falling only shallowly, completely unconscious.  
  
The more distant, just as still, Varric.  
  
She recalled hitting him, but she hadn’t expected, hadn’t known…  
  
Dorian had said everyone was alive, but what had she  _done_?  
  
-

Returning to Skyhold was a subdued and sombre trip. Nobody was much in the mood to talk, and the late hour made progress slow.  
  
Cassandra watched Vee like a hawk, and this time around, Vee couldn’t even bring herself to resent the Seeker for it. Those suspicions of hers had been vindicated when Vee had snapped. Who was to say that it wouldn’t happen again? Dimly, Vee was aware of other eyes on her too, and quick glances confirmed that someone had enlisted reinforcements, Inquisition soldiers and a pair wearing the armour of the templars.  
  
For her, most likely. If Rosemary had entered the Fade to help her…  
  
Vee could see the elf Warden ahead of her, moving alongside two stretchers, bourn along by some of the Chargers. Neither Varric nor Hawke had awoken, though as Vee’s eyes found the broken, twisted angles of Hawke’s right-side limbs, perhaps that was a mercy. Vee remembered doing that. She remembered the vindictive  _pleasure_  she got from maiming Hawke, just because she could.  
  
No, not even that; because she knew watching others come to harm would hurt Hawke all the more.  
  
The spectre of Dread loomed large in Vee’s mind.  
  
Someone fell into step alongside Vee. She looked across. Krem. The person who’d made her snap out of it long enough for Cole to put a stop to her.   
  
He managed a tired smile. “Hey. How you feeling?”  
  
Vee shrugged. “Guilty,” she couldn’t get out much more than brief bursts of speech. The way Dread had  _screamed_ , torn its own vocal chords…  
  
“Guilty’s good, if you don’t mind my saying. Means you can recognise what you did.”  
  
Vee nodded, swallowed. She blinked a few times, holding back tears.  
  
Krem walked by her in silence for a while, casting occasional glances her way. Vee could tell that he was working up to something, but shorn of her spiritual connection to emotions, it was impossible to tell what.  
  
“I’m glad I could get through to you,” he said, so softly that for a moment, Vee wasn’t sure if it was actually directed at her. “Owed that one to the Chief, and to you.”  
  
Vee looked to him, raised an eyebrow, questioning.  
  
“You, well, you helped me out. Only seemed right that I return the favour.”  
  
“Thanks, Krem.”  
  
“Now please never do that again. I like my organs.”  
  
Vee just smiled at him.  
  
And for the rest of the walk, she felt just a little better.


	45. Chapter 45

Rosemary was the first to come see Vee, sequestered away in her quarters with two templars on the door and Cassandra ostensibly there to keep an eye on her, though in practice, after the long night they’d had, the Seeker wound up falling asleep on the couch.  
  
Vee didn’t mind. Even silence was preferable to the howling of Dread.  
  
There was the clattering that had rapidly grown familiar as the elf hopped her way into the room. The mage had dark circles under her eyes, and she was even paler than normal, but she conjured a smile at Vee.  
  
“Sorry I couldn’t be here sooner,” Rosemary glanced across the room, catching sight of Cassandra. “Oh that’s adorable. She was at your side all night, you know. You were unconscious for hours; Dorian and I were barely keeping you alive, kept warning her that there was every chance you could wake up and be just as bad as before. She wouldn’t budge an inch.”  
  
“I didn’t know,” Vee looked to Cassandra with a newfound appreciation. She always pushed so hard; it was good to get confirmation of it being because she cared.  
  
“Either way, it was a close run thing. No small task to take a jump into the Fade to try and get through to a spirit. Couldn’t have done it without Solas and Cole helping me. I only kept my distance because I felt it might hit a little close to home to see the person who was just poking around in your head hovering over you,” she smiled wryly. “Also, Cassandra didn’t want too many mages around you, and it wouldn’t have been fair to Dorian to make him leave.”  
  
Vee nodded. “Things feel strange,” she gestured vaguely around her head, not really in the mood to talk much, and unsure if her throat was up to it even if she were.  
  
Rosemary studied her closely. “That’s to – well, I was going to say that’s to be expected, but this is such an unusual case that I’m not sure  _anything_  should be expected. If I were to theorise, I’d say it’s likely as a result of your spiritual side and your human side coming to… let’s call it an understanding. However, to shut the door to Dread, aspects of both had to give way. Do you feel less attuned to others, or more?”  
  
“It’s gone,” Vee murmured, feeling, all of a sudden, an acute sense of loss. It may have been strange, but it was a part of her. Skyhold felt colder without that buoying lift of its atmosphere. She wanted to explain as much to Rosemary, but the Warden wouldn’t understand her signs, and, well…  
  
Her gaze dropped down to her maimed hand, still tightly bound with bandages. How was she going to sign properly without all of her fingers?  
  
Rosemary tipped back her head, and then sighed. “I thought that might happen. I’m sorry,” she lightly tapped her crutch on the ground. “I’m not going to say that it’s better this way, but if it’s any consolation, at least you shouldn’t be at any further risk of becoming a demon again.”  
  
Vee nodded again. It would have to do.  
  
“Just keep talking to us, all right? All of us. The air needs clearing,” Rosemary paused, and then shook her head, grinning. “Leli would say this is typical of me. Here for a day and already trying to solve everyone’s problems. Camp councillor, she used to call me. Anyway… I know it isn’t going to be easy, but it’ll be good for everyone, even Cullen. Especially Cullen.”  
  
“After what happened?” Vee shook her head, hard. That was the last person she needed to see, not after the pain that they’d caused each other.

“What happened makes it even more important that you talk to him. He’ll blame himself.”  
  
“My fault. Not his.”  
  
“Vee. Tell me honestly that you really believe he’s going to pin this on you. Yes, your actions are your own, yes, what you did is something you’re going to have to come to terms with, but all he’s going to be able to see is the fact that he was delirious and lost his temper, and next thing he knew, someone he cares for a lot has become a demon.”  
  
Rosemary reached out and squeezed Vee’s hand, unbothered by the absent digits. “Talk to him, Vee. Take someone else with you; Dorian, perhaps. But  _talk to him_ ,” a soft sigh. “I know I… I got it wrong the first time, and I’m sorry. I didn’t realise he would react so badly to my presence. Really, I won’t blame you if you don’t want to, but you need the closure. Both of you.”  
  
“…I’ll think about it.”  
  
Rosemary nodded. “That’s all I can ask.”  
  
There was a soft murmuring from across the room.  
  
“No, captain!” Cassandra mumbled in her sleep. “You can’t get together with him! He’s a liar!”  
  
Rosemary and Vee looked at each other, and then burst out laughing.  
  
-  
  
“You busted me up pretty good, Squeaks. Remind me never to let you hit me again.”  
  
Vee smiled and hugged Varric around the shoulders, the dwarf returning the gesture after a moment with one arm, slightly awkwardly from his position lying on a bed.  
  
“Hey, easy now, easy. I’ve got a couple cracked ribs here,” Varric was smiling, but the expression was tinged slightly with pain. He’d been amongst the most badly hurt of Vee’s… victims, and though he was putting on a brave face, Vee could tell how much he was hurting.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I made you…”  
  
“It’s okay, Squeaks,” Varric spoke gently. “That wasn’t you. Not really. You don’t need to beat yourself up over it.”  
  
“It  _was_  me.”  
  
Varric paused, just looking at her. “I might not know much about all this Fade and spirit crap, Squeaks, but I know people, and I know my friends. What happened out there? You had a demon messing you up, Squeaks. Last time somebody I knew was under that kind of influence, they started a damn war.”  
  
“I…” Vee faltered and looked away. She’d forgotten about Anders, and yet that wasn’t the same situation, was it? Vee didn’t hold a spirit, she  _was_  a spirit.  
  
It was complicated, beyond her. All she knew was that she couldn’t accept any attempts to absolve her of responsibility for her actions.  
  
“I should… speak with Hawke.”  
  
Varric winced. “I don’t know if you should. She’s not in good shape.”  
  
“That’s why I need to.”  
  
A sigh. “I suppose I can’t stop you, but be careful.”  
  
Vee nodded and rose, heading further through the building. Hawke’s room was… here.  
  
She knocked on the door.  
  
“It’s open.”  
  
Vee entered.  
  
Hawke was propped up in bed, her arm slung across her chest, leg stretched out stiff in front. Even with magic, those injuries were going to take a long time to rehabilitate. A small girl was sitting at a chair alongside her, and Vee did a double take as she realised that she recognised the child.  
  
Oh. Oh no.  
  
“Inquisitor,” Hawke’s voice was cold.  
  
“Can we talk?”  
  
“We’re talking now. What do you want?” clipped, almost emotionless. Vee had barely been able to read Hawke when she’d had the ability to dip into her mind. Now, she may as well have been a statue.  
  
“To apologise.”  
  
Hawke’s eyebrows rose. She looked to the girl and nearly managed a smile.  
  
“Gina, go find Lady Josephine, all right? Her office is across the main hallway. Tell her I sent you.”  
  
The little girl nodded, slid from her chair, and left the room, skirting around Vee.  
  
Hawke waited for her to go.  
  
“You’re lucky. She doesn’t remember you.”  
  
Vee swallowed. “I know.”  
  
Hawke’s stare penetrated her. “You killed that kid’s family, Inquisitor.”  
  
Vee nodded again.  
  
There was a pause. Adain seemed to be trying to drill a hole through Vee with her eyes alone. At last, she sat back.

“You know, I was all set to yell at you. I was going to make sure you didn’t forget anything you’d done. To me. To Varric. To the people you murdered,” another long look. “But I think you remember every second of it, don’t you?”  
  
“I do,” and it haunted her. The first sleep she’d had since the events, and Vee had awoken in cold shivers, had to get out of bed and cling to Cassandra just to calm down.  
  
Hawke gave a slow nod. “I thought you were going to come in here and make excuses.”  
  
“Aren’t any to make.”  
  
Another look of surprise crossed Hawke’s face, and then incredibly, she smiled. “You’re a difficult person to hate, Vee. I’m not ready to call this water under the bridge; not after the things you said about my sister, and not until I know for certain you’re not going to turn wild again. But you’re accepting responsibility. That means something.”  
  
“Dread was me,” Vee said quietly. “Can’t run away from that. Like being trapped inside my own head, watching myself do… do terrible things.”  
  
“I’ve heard similar accounts,” Hawke’s tone was very nearly sympathetic. “Honestly, right now I’d be kicking your ass if you hadn’t put me in the infirmary, but once you’re in the clear? We’re good, Vee, you and me. We’re good,” Hawke awkwardly stuck out her left hand. Vee put out her own, and they shook briefly.  
  
“Sorry about the hand, Vee.”  
  
Vee looked down at the maimed fingers again. “Sorry about the arm. And the leg.”  
  
Hawke managed a ghost of a smile. “I think we’re even.”  
  
-  
  
Vee hesitated, standing outside the all-too familiar door of an all-too familiar tower.  
  
There was a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. Dorian.  
  
“Go on. I’m here should anything happen.”  
  
Vee nodded, looked back to the front, and then opened the door.  
  
The room’s occupant glanced up from his desk as she entered, and immediately froze.  
  
Cullen’s face was still marked by her claws – a little more faded than the other night, but it had likely reached the limits of what magic could do for it. He was going to have quite the set of scars when the wounds finally healed, though fortunately for him, they were likely to fall on the ‘impressive’ rather than ‘disfiguring’ end of the spectrum.  
  
“Vee,” he said. Hushed. Hoarse.

Dorian slipped into the room behind Vee and leaned against the door. Cullen looked at him, questioning.  
  
“Just here as a precaution, Commander. Don’t mind me.”  
  
Slowly, he nodded.  
  
There was a long, tense silence as Cullen and Vee looked at one another.  
  
Then they both spoke at the same time.  
  
“I should not hav-“  
“I’m so sorry, Cul-“  
  
Both stopped. Vee gave a slight nod.  
  
“I should not have… gone so far, yesterday. I was struggling with withdrawals from lyrium, attempting to distract myself with work. I allowed the pressure to get to me,” he shook his head. “I made some terrible accusations, unworthy of me. I drove you over the edge.”  
  
“No. I lost control,” Vee hesitated, trying to pick her way through the shattered memories. “I knew I was… vulnerable and I came and spoke to you anyway. I provoked you. We needed to talk, but I chose the wrong moment.”  
  
Cullen laughed. “Are we truly both apologising?”  
  
“Maybe we both have things to say sorry for.”  
  
He paused. “…Yes. Yes, I suppose that we do.”  
  
Another long silence.  
  
“I am… glad that you are unharmed. Relatively speaking.”  
  
“You too. I’m sorry I hit you.”  
  
Cullen touched his face, looked surprised. “This? This is nothing, just a scratch. I did worse to you. I said worse to you.”  
  
Vee’s eyes dropped, the memories returning. The hurtful things he’d said to her, both after Adamant and the previous day. She hadn’t been a demon, but him calling her one, those accusations he’d made…  
  
“I was in the wrong, in our arguments. You weren’t to know your nature and I … well, I assumed the worst.”  
  
Vee nodded. “I understand why you…” she swallowed, blinking back tears. “I understand, but… I wish you hadn’t.”  
  
Cullen smiled a melancholy smile. “Believe me when I say that I feel the same way. I dearly wish I could take back what I said,” he looked away from her, then let out a sigh.  
  
“Vee I… this is not going to be easy for me to say.”  
  
“I’m listening.”  
  
Cullen twisted his hands together and then allowed them to drop to his sides. “My actions made it clear that I am not fit to lead the Inquisition’s forces unless I am taking lyrium. With your leave, I would like to resign my post.”   
  
Vee stared at him.  
  
“No.”  
  
He started. “What?”  
  
“No. You’re our commander.”  
  
“Violetta, if I can’t be trusted around you while suffering withdrawals-“  
  
“The Inquisition needs you more than I do!”  
  
Cullen flinched, and Vee jolted in turn, covering her mouth with her good hand.  
  
“I… I see.”  
  
“Cullen, it can’t work, between us. After Adamant? After last night? We aren’t …” Vee faltered, trying to keep the wetness from brimming over her eyelids, and failing. “We aren’t good for each other.”  
  
“No, you’re entirely correct,” Cullen looked away again. “I am sorry that I… I wish that it could be otherwise.”  
  
“Me too.”  
  
Vee couldn’t hold back a hiccupping sob. Cullen glanced back up and held out his arms.  
  
One last time, she stepped across the room and embraced him, crying into his chest.  
  
They’d come to an understanding, perhaps forgiveness.  
  
Maybe it would be enough.


	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all your support throughout the progress of this fic. Couldn't have done it without you.
> 
> One final little bonus bit - I'll be putting this in at her first appearance too, but I finally sorted out getting scars to show up again and I made Adain, so here are a couple of screenies of what she looks like.
> 
> *quietly mourns the lack of frizzy hair options*
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/pu9Zw93.png  
> http://i.imgur.com/WUk7hJh.png  
> http://i.imgur.com/pTQE3L5.png

Time brought with it recovery, if not peace.  
  
Nightmares still plagued Vee, memories of Dread and the actions it had driven her to under its influence, fears of the same thing happening to her again.  
  
But slowly, as the voices at the edges of her understanding and consciousness failed to return, as her injuries healed and the Inquisition – that small yet significant part of it that knew what happened on that night – was able to move on, life returned to normal, or at least something close to it.  
  
There were some scars that couldn’t be forgotten.  
  
And yet there were a few wounds which found salve from unexpected quarters.  
  
Sera, bashfully approaching her out in the field, not precisely apologising, but making an effort to impress upon Vee that she maybe, just maybe, missed her company.  
  
“You’re still weird, right? But it’s still good weird, too. Just don’t go frigging clawing my face off.”  
  
Blackwall, stopping her as she went to retrieve her horse from the stables, struggling for a while, and then giving her the briefest of hugs.  
  
“You’re a fine leader and your heart is in the right place. I’ll follow you.”  
  
Vivienne, giving her a cordial nod as she passed by, and then beckoning with a finger.  
  
“Setting aside that little mishap of yours, dear, you appear to be freed from your possession. Do stop by to talk sometime; we really must see about taking your measurements to a tailor.”  
  
Hawke, limping, but too proud to accept a cane, hewing her way through practice dummies at a rate comparable to Cassandra.  
  
“Kid’s improving, Vee. Sleeping better at night. Thought you might want to know. Can’t replace her parents, but maybe I can… never mind. Talk to you later.”  
  
Cassandra, with a fierce embrace out of nowhere.  
  
“I am glad we are friends, Violetta. The Inquisition would be lost without you.”  
  
And exchanging nods and smiles with Cullen as they passed one another.  
  
But quickly. Always quickly.  
  
-  
  
Solas stood at Vee’s side, the two of them looking out from an Inquisition camp in the rolling expanse of the Exalted Plains.  
  
She rolled her shoulder, testing it, flexed her left hand. Still felt strange, but she had built back some of her strength, cultivated a dagger-wielding technique to accommodate her missing fingers, albeit awkwardly.  
  
She felt good, strong, even.  
  
This would mark the first time she had been back out in the field since Adamant.  
  
Krem was behind them, exchanging light jibes with Cassandra. Though he’d been reluctant to fill Bull’s role, he was a natural fit. His presence made Vee miss her friend just a little less, and she figured, as best she could, that it was good for Krem, too.  
  
“Are you certain you’re ready?” Solas tried to keep the concern from showing, but didn’t quite succeed.  
  
_’Ready as I’ll ever be,’_  Vee signed, as best she could. That was one area where things would never quite be the same again. Certain signs she was forced to exaggerate or clumsily duplicate to make up for the stumps of her fingers.  
  
Solas gave a nod.  
  
“Let’s remind everyone that the Inquisition has a voice,” Vee called to the others, flashing a wink at her joke.  
  
Her heart sang as they moved out.  
  
This was where she belonged.  
  
Whatever she’d been before, whatever she’d been since, Hope, Dread, the memories of Violetta, all of those things combined…  
  
Now she had purpose.  
  
She was the Inquisitor.


End file.
